The long shadow of false accusations: “White Hispanic” George Zimmerman is still being demonized as though he’s guilty
Yesterday in the comments to the Rittenhouse/Sandmann thread, I brought up George Zimmerman in this way: “…George Zimmerman the half-Hispanic had to be made into a ‘white Hispanic,’ the better to be demonized.”
In subsequently doing a search for Zimmerman’s name, I came across this news story from five days ago:
A weekend event featuring a speech by George Zimmerman was nixed by an Idaho hotel group after the company learned the man who killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin was slated to be a headlining attraction at their venue.
The gathering, billed as the Lethal Force Gun Laws 2021 Tactics & Strategies Conference, was to have begun Friday and ended Monday at The Riverside Hotel in Boise.
Boise is not exactly a deep blue city. And yet it happened:
That report said the hotel owners cited for its reason the “immense pain” Zimmerman caused its “guests, team-members and community” when he gunned down the unarmed Black teen in February of 2012.
So Zimmerman “gunned down” Martin, with the implication that he shot in cold blood some guy who was just standing there. And although Martin indeed was an “unarmed” teenager, he was actually far bigger and stronger than Zimmerman and when shot Martin was engaged in beating Zimmerman bloody, complete with head-bashing into the pavement while sitting on him and trying to reach for his weapon.
It seems the leftist narrative is fully intact at the NY Daily News, nine years after the event and almost as many years after Zimmerman’s acquittal, as you will discover if you read the whole article.
More from the Boise hotel:
We are unequivocally opposed to providing George Zimmerman a platform and he is not welcome at The Riverside Hotel.
You may also recall that Zimmerman has had a lot of trouble repairing his life since those events in 2012, and although I assume his acquittal helped it certainly didn’t mean that he can live a normal life. One of many things that happened to him, post-trial, was that some person (actually, a man named “Apperson”) shot at him while he was driving. You can read about it here:
On May 11, 2015, Apperson shot at Zimmerman while the two were driving in separate cars on a street in Lake Mary. Zimmerman was grazed by glass and metal shards when the bullet broke through his passenger-side window and was stopped by the metal window frame, causing minor facial injuries from flying glass and debris. Zimmerman flagged down a police officer and was taken to the hospital. Apperson maintained that Zimmerman was the aggressor and that Apperson acted in self-defense. Zimmerman also had a gun with him at the time of the incident, but Zimmerman’s attorney said that “George absolutely denies having shown it, waved, displayed, pointed it.” A Lake Mary police spokesperson stated that “the investigation has proven that George Zimmerman was not the shooter.”
On May 15, 2015, Apperson was jailed in Sanford, Florida with a bond of $35,000. While free on bond, Apperson was accused, convicted and jailed for disorderly conduct, which revoked his bond. Lake Mary PD “learned that Apperson has exhibited unusual behaviors in which he had recently been admitted to a mental institution. It appears that Apperson has a fixation on Zimmerman and has displayed some signs of paranoia, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.”
On September 22, 2015, a judge ruled Apperson would stand trial for second-degree attempted murder along with one count of aggravated assault and one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle. Apperson was convicted of attempted murder and aggravated assault with a firearm on September 16, 2016.
There’s a permanent target on Zimmerman’s back. I assume the same will be true for Kyle Rittenhouse even if acquitted. Rittenhouse has the advantage, however – at least, I think it’s an advantage – of being so young that, as he matures, his look will change and he might not be all that recognizable in a few years.
NOTE: By the way, in February of 2020 Zimmerman sued Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, as well as Martin’s mother, for defamation. I can’t find anything recent about the lawsuit, so I assume it still might be ongoing.
The notorious characterization in Pravda-on-the-Hudson of Zimmerman (whose mother was “Afro-Peruvian”) as a “white Hispanic” could easily have been corrected with a minimal amount of investigative labor, but the journalistic imperative to be not on the reporting of events, but on the shaping of events towards an implanting of the desired perception in the mind of the public, has, for quite some time, trumped any and all previous concerns with presenting current affairs with as much objectivity as is humanly possible. One should never forget the famous (or infamous) eleventh of the Marxian Theses on Feuerbach about the point of philosophy being to change the world.
I have no special knowledge of Boise, but as the home of Boise State University (24,000 students) I’m guessing it’s a typical blue-city-in-a-red-state, like e.g. Lawrence, Kansas.
Boise is not a blue city, but it is becoming more and more purple, thanks to immigration and fleeing Californians. The hotel’s owners might be woke, but they also might have been bombarded with boycott threats and general harassment. The organized left is very effective in intimidating small businesses, even in red states.
The Left never quits.
And good luck suing Mayor Pete. He’s immune.
What needs to start happening is that the media mouthpieces, the producers, editors and the CEOs of the parent corporations face charges of “Criminal Negligence” when they act egregiously.
Arguably that charge fits; “The failure to use reasonable care to avoid consequences that threaten or harm the safety of the public and that are the foreseeable outcome of acting in a particular manner.”
It ‘fits’ because the “public” is made up of individuals. If harm comes to the public, it consists of harm done to individuals.
Certainly the media has greviously and intentionally harmed George Zimmerman’s reputation.
By no calculus can it be claimed that the media used “reasonable care” in avoiding “a foreseeable outcome” in how they portrayed George Zimmerman and Travon Martin.
When they engage in criminal negligence, there must be accountability and personal consequence for those in the media.
Witch hunts, warlock trials, and diversity politics that reduce a man to a “White Hispanic” (a Hispanic of White) in an incident that was unprovoked, where there was a clear and progressive threat to his viability. Then there was the nationwide mob that over a multi-trimester period, apparently in progress, that assaulted people… persons in close and distant association with the accused who was established beyond a reasonable doubt to have acted in self-defense. Deplorable. #HateLovesAbortion
A handmade tale, one of a diversity present in our modern ecosystem, that are reduced, reused, recycled and brayed incessantly in a bid to spin myth for political congruence (e.g. leverage).
There is an important documentary film by Joel Gilbert, The Travon Hoax ,that exposes the fraud behind the main witness in the Travon case ,Rachel Jeantel, who was allegedly on the phone with Travon minutes before his death. Gilbert tracks down Travon’s real girlfriend Diamond Eugene who actually was on the phone with Travon according to Gilbert. Gilbert backs up his case with forensic handwriting analysis and DNA testing and argues that Travon’s lawyers knew that Jeantel was a phony witness but was used because the real Diamond did not want to cooperate. See the movie for the full story. It’s actually pretty convincing. Regrettably this information hasn’t penetrated the MSM and George Zimmerman is still publicly demonized.
Seen that documentary Paul above mentions, it is a shocking piece the DA’s hid from view.
Leftist will not leave anyone alone after a confrontation especially one they lost.
You would think how the media suddenly started talking about a “ white hispanic” would have alerted people to the possibility that the media had an agenda. As I recall at the time, there were only two previous persons known at the time where the media spoke of “ white hispanics”. I remember getting into it at the time with a lefty friend of a friend on FB. He brushed away the idea that there was any thing going on with the medias use of that term. Of course, this guy had been a teacher, and maybe they had some form at school where they differentiated between white and not white hispanics….In retrospect, That teacher was the first time I seriously ran up against someone who was not just a leftist, but “ woke”, though I was not aware of the term back then. It was like hitting a brick wall trying to discuss things with him.
The narrative got set early on and is still believed today, or at least there is fear of left violence if the narrative isn’t bowed down to. At 37 seconds in there is an animated video, one of 2 that CBS put out, that set the narrative for many.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbS8WqZSRZ8
BTW. That above video has Zimmerman shooting Trayvon from a distance. The second one they ran later after it came out that they had a physical confrontation has a taller and bigger Zimmerman hitting Trayvon twice and then shooting him.
Ackler, you’re right, Boise has most likely been taken over by ex-Californians by now.
I live in Boise. I am in fact, a native born Boisean , a very rare thing these days. Someone else wrote a comment which I can unequivocally confirm – Boise is no longer a red state city but is in fact a deep, dark purple. Yes, thanks to immigration and fleeing Californians. Partially too, as someone else wrote, to the local college – Boise State, which is VERY left in the majority of its teachings.
The organized left is very effective in intimidating big chunks of Boise including citizens and business. Our current mayor is a radical leftist.
I am lucky enough to be located in a small niche that is still very red with solid schools. We’ll see where my kids end up attending university….
The Zimmerman / Hotel decision did not surprise me, only saddened.
NOTE: By the way, in February of 2020 Zimmerman sued Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, as well as Martin’s mother, for defamation. I can’t find anything recent about the lawsuit, so I assume it still might be ongoing.
Wait, I thought one of the results of covington catholic is that legally elected officials like senators can slander anybody they want. They have protection as “Government Employees”
I know a woman who, when it was mentioned, said she knows Zimmerman fired in self defense and is not guilty. But she prefers to believe he murdered a child.
Big D, my understanding is that members of Congress can say just about anything they want while they are on the floor of their respective chamber and there they cannot be called to account for it by anyone [Article I Section 6] except their fellow legislators [Article I Section 5].
“…be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, …, and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
But if they leave the protection of that venue and say something clearly libelous, they could be charged and remedies sought. Does anyone else understand this differently?
Even tonight while watching ABC world news tonight when they were talking about the Rittenhouse case referred to those shot by Rittenhouse as “protesters.”
And, it disappoints me, but doesn’t surprise me, that people who set fires, attack other people, and in general cause a lot of trouble are NOT called rioters by the MSM. Instead they are called “protesters” just like antifa is nothing but a bunch of “protesters.”
Richard Aubrey.
You’re gonna haff to expand on that. Please
Big D; R2L:
I am pretty sure the remarks made by Warren and Buttigieg were tweets on Twitter. Not protected.
Regrettably this information hasn’t penetrated the MSM and George Zimmerman is still publicly demonized.
It’s conceivable that Rachel Jeantel was a phony witness who lied her tuchus off on the stand. That would be another indicator that the trial prosecutor, Bernardo de la Rionda, was one unscrupulous piece of work. (Jerilyn Merritt offered that in nearly 40 years of practicing criminal defense law, she’d never encountered a prosecutor whose conduct was so contrary to professional norms). However, her testimony was of scant value to the prosecution and she made a horrible impression. Recordings of Zimmerman’s calls and the calls to the non-emergency dispatcher, the actual eyewitness testimony, photographs of Zimmerman taken at the scene, crime scene photographs, recordings of the 911 calls made by residents, maps of the complex, and the autopsy report on Trayvon Martin were sufficient to establish what happened.
AD:
Recordings of Zimmerman’s calls and the calls to the non-emergency dispatcher, the actual eyewitness testimony, photographs of Zimmerman taken at the scene, crime scene photographs, recordings of the 911 calls made by residents, maps of the complex, and the autopsy report on Trayvon Martin were sufficient to establish what happened.
All of which I had seen/read online within weeks of the shooting. Thank you, fellow citizens! That’s pretty much when I turned off the TV and quit reading the three newspapers we subscribed to at that time.
Kinda like most of this Durham stuff—how many years ago did I know much of that???
But the liars give themselves Pulitzers…
Such is the world we live in.
TJ. That’s what she said. Comes from a Prussian blue area and milieu. Using the descriptor purposely.
Visiting a small town in the Midwest, exclaimed in surprise that the Episcopal church was honoring Pride Week.
It is necessary for her to believe certain things as support blueness. Even if she knows on another level what is actually true.
Not the only one I know but the most obvious.
I always felt that Zimmerman should have moved to Peru for a few years and changed his last name before he returned to America. I live in NYC and the New York Daily News has been a left wing Democratic Blue Collar rag for a while.
The Riverside Hotel is a Best Western franchise. I wonder if it would do any good to complain to the parent company. At this point, I’d be pleased to boycott Best Western until there is some redress.
I always felt that Zimmerman should have moved to Peru for a few years and changed his last name before he returned to America.
A repellent idea.
His principal problem is that malevolent and craven hiring managers rule him out, just as a malevolent or craven hotel manager refuses to have him on the premises even though he’s innocent of any crime. Well, there are masses of people who’ve never heard of him and masses of people who are sympathetic to him.
@ Richard Aubrey,
We all recognize that we live in a time and social environment where the norms are particularly incoherent and contradictory.
This of course can be the result of nothing less than the same feature in individuals being projected large on the social stage.
In this post truth mileau it makes sense not only to categorize and document the intellectual origins, threads, and manifestations of the anti-truth impulse and ideology as James Lindsay et al have so valuably done, but to take a look at the organic or psychological impulse behind it, and to ask what kind of person generates such a preference, or reflexively, results from, the embrace of such a value system.
Jon Haidt has observed we are a post honor culture civilization, and now in a state transitioning from the replacement dignity culture, to a furter stage victimhood (confering privilege) culture.
The question that naturally occurs is not only how much of this impulse is traceable to Marxian ideology, but also how much to feminism; and whether at base, these two ideologies share certain presuppositions that inevitably lead, in their concern with the compassionate distribution of physical and psychological satisfactions and social esteem, to a war with truth.
And to be brutal about it, one might ask the provocative questions: “Do women have honor? And if they do, is it in the same way men have, or once had, it?”
(The women in my family and life of course do have honor. What those females the rest of you associate with, do or have, is another matter. LOL)
The answer to the first question is obviously “Yes” some women did and still do according to various conceptions have honor. The second question is not so easy to answer, especially as Haidt definitionally separates personal Honor, from socially ascribed Dignity.
The former concept, i.e. Honor, both enables and holds to account the actions of an individual.: both empowering, or better legitimizing, (even violence in some situations) and imposing liabilities.
Ascribing “Dignity” to all nowadays, when it was once socially gained or earned through honorable behavior, does no such thing.
This is all mixed up with the idea that nature is cruel and unjust ( including the feminist idea of the “tyranny of biology”); with the idea that man creates morality rather than finds it; and with the idea that the proportional return of value received to value produced to a particular individual is not socially equal or fair …
Jordan Peterson famously responded to a question from his audience by mussing out loud about the impact, only 50 years old, on society of women having political power. ( they have had serious DIRECT political influence for over 100 )
He speculates that men and women may have evolved to have different primary social interests. Or survival strategies.
He says that we have not seen this experiment go on long enough to know the result of this influence.
I think that maybe we have.
Art Deco
That was a very ‘repellant’comment by you. Obviously you did not understand what I wrote. He should have changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name.
When so many more people are killed by stomping, kicking, and beating with feet and hands than are killed by firearms according to the FBI, I consider everyone armed.
I was at the Lethal Force Gun Laws 2021 Tactics & Strategies Conference last weekend. Excellent speakers and presentations!
Yes, we were unceremoniously thrown out of the Riverside Hotel, but the organizer was able to find another venue at the last minute. A VERY welcoming venue, who bent over backward to help make the conference work.
The Riverside, on the other hand, not only cancelled us, but as of the last day of the conference on Monday, had made no mention of refunding the considerable payment they had received, blaming the organizer for violating conditions of the contract.
Despicable organization.