Will Hispanic Voters Tolerate Demonizing George Zimmerman?
The fact that a black friend of his stepped forward on NBC and MSNBC to rebut the charge that Zimmerman hates blacks and it has been reported that Zimmerman and his wife mentored young blacks emphasizes that we need to ascertain the facts instead of imagine or manufacture "facts."
The shooting of Treyvon Martin, a 17-year old black male whom President Obama said looks like the son he might have had, poses big problems for President Obama.
It turns out that the shooter--George Zimmerman--is not white, but Hispanic.
In addition, it appears that he doesn't hate and shoot people because they happen to be black.
It's unclear at this time whether he acted reasonably in self-defense or not.
It's also unclear whether this shooting will help or hurt President Obama's re-election campaign.
It's not likely that President Obama can improve on his share of the black vote in the 2012 presidential election.
The conventional wisdom is that President Obama will need to do very well with Hispanic votes to be re-elected.
Are Hispanics less interested in due process for a Hispanic than blacks are for a black?
I doubt it.
It appears clear that the liberal media establishment didn't learn much from the Duke case.
John Leon's "Brawley case of the South," posted in Jewish World Review on August 13, 2007 (http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/leo081307.php3) is especially worth re-reading (or reading for the first time) now.
Leo:
"If anyone ever starts a museum of horrible explanations, the one-liner by Newsweek's Evan Thomas about his magazine's dubious reporting on the Duke non-rape case — 'The narrative was right but the facts were wrong' — is destined to become a popular exhibit, right up there with 'we had to destroy the village to save it.'
"What Mr. Thomas seems to mean is that the newsroom view of the lacrosse players as privileged, sexist, and arrogant white male jocks was the correct angle on the story. It wasn't.
"According to Duke's female lacrosse team and other women on campus, the male players are solid citizens who treat women well. Many players volunteer to tutor poor children in Durham. Some players are privileged, but most come from ordinary middle-class homes. There is no evidence of a racist team culture.
"One objectionable racial comment was reported that night, in response to a racial taunt from one of the strippers. It occurred after the party and the player involved was not one of those indicted. The mainstream press, most conspicuously the New York Times, botched the story by imposing a race-gender-class narrative line. The facts were wrong, as Mr. Thomas said, but the narrative line was wrong too."
Zimmerman is entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence, just as Martin would have been if he had been the shooter.
The fact that a black friend stepped forward on NBC and MSNBC to rebut the charge that Zimmerman hates blacks and it has been reported that Zimmerman and his wife mentored young blacks emphasizes that we need to ascertain the facts instead of imagine or manufacture "facts."
Leo also stated in the article:
"After the Tawana Brawley hoax was exposed, the Nation magazine ran an article saying that 'in cultural perspective, if not in fact, it doesn't matter whether the crime occurred or not,' since the pattern of whites abusing blacks is true. Whatever.
"The 'fake but accurate' argument pops up now and then in the wake of campus rape hoaxes. After a falsely accused male student was cleared, one feminist said, 'I wouldn't have spared him the experience,' meaning that the case was a useful teaching instrument about male behavior. Whether the rape had actually occurred was of lesser interest.
"The 'almost doesn't matter' argument surfaced in the Duke case too. At the mostly black North Carolina Central University, student Chan Hall spoke for many when he said the lacrosse players should be prosecuted for rape 'whether it happened or not,' to provide 'justice for things that happened in the past.'
"The Brooklyn College professor, K.C. Johnson, who has blogged for months on the Duke case at his Durham-in-Wonderland site, pointed out that no prominent officials in Durham bothered to distance themselves from such comments. He wrote that among academics and reporters 'because black people in the South have been wrongly convicted in the past, it is wrong to worry if whites, or Asians, or Hispanics are railroaded for political reasons today."
It is wrong NOT to worry about that.
No one should "railroaded for political reasons today."
That includes George Zimmerman, whether or not the shooting was murder or justifiable homicide, and regardless of his ethnicity or gender.
The facts must matter, if the rule of law is to prevail.
Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.
Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.
The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.
Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.
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