The moderate-liberal commentator opines: "It turns out that Martin had smoked pot, and was fond of profanity. Predictably, and sickeningly, the right is exploiting the less-than-sterling aspects of his life to suggest they should have some bearing on how we judge George Zimmerman’s having shot him dead. In point of fact, all they prove is that he was an ordinary American teenager. The weed and the salty language are par for the course among more than a few of my favorite undergrads I teach at Columbia. Yes, Martin jauntily labeled himself with the N-word, but as endless threnodies over the past 20 years have stressed, absolutely nothing could be more typical of someone of his age and demographic."
He continues his commentary: "At the same time, George Zimmerman is likely not, as some on the left have suggested and seem to almost hope, a drooling racist monster. The details of what happened between him and Martin remain under-explored and likely will never be known in full. However, after last week’s revelations, it looks ever more as if Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, as absurd as it sounded from the briefer version of things we had last week, holds a certain amount of water."
More: "Yes, Zimmerman deserves to spend a long time behind bars regardless. Even if Trayvon had been a thug, Zimmerman would have had no business detaining him. However, let’s face it: It’s hardly implausible to suppose that Trayvon got the best of Zimmerman in physical combat. (Zimmerman claims that Trayvon initiated the scuffle: if so, few would blame him under the conditions.) Two weeks ago the word was that Trayvon was a '140-pound boy,' but he was in fact over six feet tall, weighed more like 150 pounds, and was certainly in a position to overpower a paunchy man of 5 foot 9. At this writing, ABC News has revealed, with enhanced video, that Zimmerman would appear to have indeed had bloody scars on the back of his head when taken into custody, as he claimed. If this is what happened and Zimmerman shot Martin in alarm, then his two principal sins remain: of stopping Martin in the first place, and carrying a gun at all. A less regrettable outcome that night would have been that Trayvon Martin beat up George Zimmerman and went home. Only Zimmerman’s packing heat allowed the possibility that anyone would be shot, much less killed."
He ain't done yet: "One lesson is that our gun control laws are a global disgrace — and we see the evils of this as much within the black community as beyond it. The other is that America must be able to hold two things in its mind at once, as Zimmerman did not: that black men commit a disproportionate number of crimes compared to their representation in the population and that the statistical facts do not justify intruding upon the peace and comfort of individual black men, short of powerfully urgent justifications of a kind Zimmerman had nothing remotely resembling."
Booker Rising response: Slow your roll, John. "We" are now gonna blame an unarmed Trayvon for defending himself against an armed stranger who was coming at him, when he had committed no crime? Again, it was Zimmerman who had the gun.
JOHN MCWHORTER COMMENTARY: The Haunting Ordinariness Of Trayvon Martin And George Zimmerman
