By William L. Garvin
 
Contemporary mainstream media strikingly resembles a carnival Fun House where every mirror distorts every image.  The model is predictable:  liberals are lionized; Blacks are beatified; Caucasians are vilified; and conservatives are crucified.  The incessant media drum beat around Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman epitomizes this.  Unfortunately, it is also a sad commentary on “low information voters,” their lack of knowledge, and illogical conclusions.
 
Martin has been lionized as “an innocent child,” analogous to Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, a seminal figure in the civil rights movement, an “unarmed young man who committed no crime.”  Al Sharpton, the poster child for incendiary hyperbole, even conjured up similarities with the trial of Jesus Christ.  What idiocy!  On the other hand, Zimmerman was not only denied his Hispanic identity, but he alternately “profiled, stalked, pursued, confronted and murdered a young, innocent black boy.”  Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Florida) typified the media position: “I want America to see this sweet young boy who was hunted down like a dog, shot in the street, and his killer is still at large.”  Every flaw in Martin’s character was covered up and every exculpatory factor in Zimmerman’s life was ignored or withheld.  Old photos of a very young Martin were chosen while audio and video tapes were deliberately edited to show Zimmerman in the worst possible light.
 
After the acquittal, for some inexplicable reason, the racial dividers focused on “Stand Your Ground” laws.  This was NEVER a defense or element of the Zimmerman trial!  They are deliberately conflating disparate issues but for the record, a few facts are in order.  Eric Holder should do his homework.  Pay close attention:  Blacks represented 16.6% of the Florida population in 2012.  However, of the 133 SYG defenses mounted in that year, one-third (44) were from Blacks.  Twenty-four (55%) were successfully acquitted and eleven (25%) were convicted.  Whites used the defense 76 times and 40 (53%) were acquitted and 25 (33%) were convicted.  It is clear that Blacks use the SYG defense far out of proportion to their numbers and are far more successful in its use than Whites.   Of course, the Zimmerman trial was about self defense, not SYG.  Martin was the one who broke Zimmerman’s nose and was on top of him pummeling him (according to the witness) when he was shot, hence the acquittal.
 
In the worst kind of pandering, President Obama and Eric Holder have joined the usual suspects (Sharpton and Jackson) postulating a premise that if Martin would have been white, things would have been different.  If a white teenager in the same circumstances had been beating up a black man and then been killed, the outcome would have been the same BUT YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER HEARD ABOUT IT!  The media, the NAACP, Sharpton, Jackson, Holder, and Obama don’t seem to care very much about black on black crime, let alone black on white crime.  Here are some examples:  a 17-year old teenager was sitting in his vehicle in a parking lot in Charleston when he was murdered.  Four black men have been arrested.  You probably don’t know any of their names.  In Brunswick, Georgia, a 17-year old and a 14-year old tried to rob a young woman.  When she said she didn’t have any money, one said “Do you want me to kill your baby?”  He fired a shot into the ground, another grazed her ear, then a third shot went into left leg.  Despite her pleas, De’Marquis Elkins walked around the stroller and shot Sherry West’s baby in the face.  Antonio died but you probably didn’t even know his name. The prolonged rapes, hideous tortures, and grisly murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom are even more gruesome in detail.  However,  the media never seemed to detail the story because it doesn’t fit the Chris Mathews “on behalf of all white people I apologize” modality.
 
By the way, if you’re black, don’t stray from the party line.  Charles Barkley and Bill Cosby both supported the jury’s decision in Sanford.  Subsequently, they were viciously attacked by numerous black twits on Twitter.  The paper tiger attackers excessive use of the N-word ending with an “a” not an “er” negates the “term of endearment” definition that Rachel Jeantel tried to establish.  Will Holder solicit tips from the public on racism by Barkley and Cosby to justify civil rights actions?  As for the president, someone who attended a “rich kid” high school, extremely expensive white colleges and universities, and then meteorically rose to the presidency and was subsequently reelected, there is little “street cred” in his purported experiences with discrimination.  It’s just another Fun House mirror distorting reality.