George Zimmerman suing parents of Trayvon Martin among others

[Rev. Rye]

Under 18 is still legally a child in Florida. When I did my research into the Florida jury instructions, that was actually part of the manslaughter deliberations.

[no one]

This guy:
People toss the "racist"  term around without restraint. In short, its genuine value is muddled. There is only one race of people on this planet, the human one. I hate them all, I am a racist in the most accurate sense.

Athene:
I hope that wasn't in response to my post that was directly above this, because if it was you are sorely mistaken. See, when I toss around the term 'racist' it's because actually warranted. 

Unfortunately, White Supremacy is deeply ingrained in the American psyche. Thus, racist bullshit is extremely prevalent in the US.
That's just the truth.

Now, if that's not something you'd normally be inclined to worry yourself with, I get it. Don't.
That's fine by me. Honestly.
And if you'd like to blame any apathy on your part, future intrusive thoughts, unsavory affiliations, a 2020 vote for Trump, drugs use, high lipid count, potholes or whatever on folks recognizing racist fuckery and calling it what it is, that's fine with me too. Whatever floats your boat.

The show will go on, though.

It seems maybe my point has been missed.
Planet Earth has one, and only one race of people on it, the human one.
Sure, asshattery and blind hatred run rampant through the species. Humans are stupid. Very, very stupid.
The species love to dissect themselves countless insignificant little bundles.
There are only 2 types of people, cool ones, and assholes. It's just that simple.

[BrokenQuill92]

His mother has significant African ancestry

So it's black on black violence

Not necessarily. Obama has a white mother but nobody calls him white. I have a native grandmother but I’m not native. See?

[EgoDeath]

If George Zimmerman says he identifies as Hispanic, and has a Peruvian mother, I don't really see a need to doubt that self-identification. It's not like this is some sort of Rachel Dolezal type of case. And it's very beside the point. He murdered a 17 year old young man. Who cares what race he is?

edit:

It should be noted that every Hispanic person I've known to have white people in their family still identifies as Hispanic, and black folks I know who have white in their family still identify as black. I'm not really sure what the obsession is with trying to paint Zimmerman as a "white man." He's not a white man, plain and simple. Furthermore, I'm not sure why it should matter.

[Shell B]

You can join the Army at 17? I don't think that's correct.

Edit: You can with parental permission. Sure seems like that's because 17-year-olds are goddamn children.

[Rev. Rye]

If George Zimmerman says he identifies as Hispanic, and has a Peruvian mother, I don't really see a need to doubt that self-identification. It's not like this is some sort of Rachel Dolezal type of case. And it's very beside the point. He murdered a 17 year old young man. Who cares what race he is?

Well, of course, it should be noted that Hispanic/Latino is not listed as its own race on the US Census (due in no small part for how complicated the issue of race can be, especially in Latin America; just look at Cameron Diaz and Celia Cruz, both Latin, though one looked more black than brown, and the other could probably fit under Hitler's Aryan ideal, and then, looking at how Brazil approaches whiteness, it all gets even more muddled).

And it shouldn't matter what race Zimmerman identifies as, because the fact is, what you have is a guy who wants to be a cop, and stalked and shot a 17-year-old kid because he thought he could be a threat, and he was wrong about that. And that kid's dead. And in a vacuum, that should be enough to have him punished.

But, that can't be the case, because centuries ago, Europeans decided to colonise the newly-discovered Western hemisphere, and decided to abduct and enslave people from another continent, and kept them in chains for centuries more, and even when we decided maybe making them slaves was a bad idea, we still did a shitty job of trying to integrate them into society (indeed, we kept them out as much as possible and left them in a condition that wasn't much better than slavery), and even as the law changed and told them we have to at least try and do a better job and even as it's become clear that race is just a made-up concept that we created to fuck people over, we can't unring that bell. Now we have a cycle of poverty and laws being disproportionately enforced on them that's conditioned many to think darker skin colour is threatening. And, because of that, a lot of black people have died the same way Trayvon did at the hands of much less ethnically ambiguous men. And though we know as a society (or at least we should know it) that it shouldn't matter, it still does.

[onlinebiker]

You can join the Army at 17? I don't think that's correct.

Edit: You can with parental permission. Sure seems like that's because 17-year-olds are goddamn children.

See - I know that shit cuz I served with a couple 17 year olds.


And they would have took serious offense at being called children....

And they did their share.

[Chad32]

Granted, a typical three year old will take offense at being called a small child, so there's not much weight behind that.

[The Architect Of Fate]

See - I know that shit cuz I served with a couple 17 year olds.

Irrelevant 

And they would have took serious offense at being called children....

Who cares 

And they did their share.

And?

[Rev. Rye]

A 17-year-old is legally still a child. Florida law statute to prove it (and, yes, this case is relevant, because the Martin case happened in Florida.) A 17-year-old can be really mature, but that doesn't mean they're not still children in the eyes of the law. As a former 17-year-old myself, I can say with authority, why, yes, that does suck.