I have made it my business to avoid the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case. To me it's just another court case singled out for special media attention, one out of the thousands that occur in the U.S. It is just one of all those that illustrate the continuing prejudices and racism that continue to run through our society.
Where is the outrage for all the other sons who are assaulted or killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of their own?
I hate that this case was presented as a referendum on justice for all the kids (regardless of their race or ethnicity) who are unfairly suspected to be up to no good. It's too much pressure for a case like this to withstand.
Those people who were looking to this case for justice would be satisfied with nothing less than the conviction of George Zimmerman whether or not he was guilty of breaking the law. (Maybe the law is bad and should be changed, but that is an entirely different issue.)
Friday, President Obama was quoted as saying, "Trayvon could have been me." That is certainly true. I imagine he was watched and monitored unfairly through his whole life, probably more so as he entered elite universities, etc.
I do think that the prevalence of racism is better than it was 35 years ago. That is not saying that I think it's good. Racial profiling still goes on everyday, just ask your Muslim neighbors.
We don't even have to be in any particular category to be watched. President Obama said that Treyvon Martin could have been him, but the truth is that we're all being watched and monitored everyday. If you didn't realize it before, the recent information that has come out about the NSA data collection systems and capabilities has shown it to us.
We all have cause to feel like Trayvon being watched and followed even though we haven't done anything illegal. Where's President Obama's outrage about that?
What happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman that fateful day is a tragedy. Period. It's just about two people, one African-American and one Hispanic, and their families. It's tragic enough without making it the standard bearer for justice in our society.
Rather than asking one person to be punished for the sins of our society, perhaps we should look at the institutions within our society that have us running so scared, acting so paranoid, that we must watch everyone in order to feel safe.
In order to graduate from college, I had to take one more English class in summer session. Even though I found my professor a hypocritical bore, I really appreciate many of the things that I learned in that class.
Warning Rant Ahead! But, to be fair, I haven't had a rant in a long time. What prompted this was a comment on blog post I read a few days ago where the author was ranting about people who use words that aren't real. The word (or non-word) in question was "irregardless."
Let's forget that this collection of letters is acknowledged by Merriam-Webster (albeit "nonstandard" usage). English is a living language. It is constantly growing and adapting. Pronunciation shifts over time. Shakespeare invented tons of words, yes invented. Do people object and complain about him? No, they honor him for his creativity. Oh, they may complain that they don't understand Shakespeare, but that's because the English language has developed and changed.
Nevertheless, here is a small sample of the words that Shakespeare created that you might find familiar: accommodation, bloody, critic, hurry, obscene, and sanctimonious. (That last one seems quite apt, wouldn't you say?) And Shakespeare was not alone in his creation of new words. Charles Dickens did it too (among many other authors and speakers), and don't even get me started on poets. ;) We, as a society, invent new words or usage all the time. Ten years ago, Who would have thought that anyone except birds would "tweet?"
Before we get all judgmental because someone said, "irregardless" or "ain't" because we think that the speaker is somehow deficient in their education, we should reconsider how language works. It lives and breathes and adapts to the conditions of the speaker. In other words, if a new word or grammatical usage appears, it is because there was something missing or deficient. A great example is the contraction "y'all" for second person plural. "Standard" English really doesn't have a second person plural and languages need it, Ta-Da!
And the same thing applies to pronunciation. We can't feel that our pronunciation is somehow superior to another person's because it is in a dictionary or something. The way that the first compilers did it was to put the most common pronunciation not the most correct. Read the introduction of a dictionary. You may be astounded by what you find there.
Having said all that, I must admit that I did let my best friend know that the most common pronunciation of the word "moot" was not "mute," as in something being "a moot point." I really don't care. I already know she's brilliant, but I didn't want people judging her in business meetings.
My favorite thing about my linguistics class is that it made me aware of a whole form of prejudice that I carried without ever realizing it. I learned that just because someone had a certain accent or invented a word, it didn't mean that they were dumb. After all, they're in some good company.
[END RANT]
Have a pleasant day! :)
commentary,current events,government,politics,prejudice,United States politics
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