Don’t believe the media, race was key to the Zimmerman case

When everyone in the media tells you the George Zimmerman acquittal had nothing to do with race don’t believe a word of it.

It was all about race, all about a non-black jury who had no idea whatever about the life of a young black person and who saw him the way George Zimmerman saw him - as a threat.

The prosecution’s major mistake  began right at jury selection when they were totally outmaneuvered  by defense attorney  Mark O’Mara and formed a six person jury with no African Americans.

A tall young black man in a hoodie walking through a white neighborhood on a wet and dark night signified only one thing to Zimmerman and the non-black jury felt the same way too.

Never mind the fact that the 17-year-old had merely gone to a nearby store to get some skittles and iced tea.

Never mind that George Zimmerman stalked him and refused to back off even after being told to do so by a police dispatcher.

What subsequently happened was as predictable as an all-black jury acquitting OJ Simpson and probably just as big a travesty.

The outcome that George Zimmerman had no responsibility for the death of Travyon Martin is ludicrous.

The juror who spoke on Anderson Cooper on CNN unbelievably wanted Zimmerman to be on her Neighborhood Watch program even after this killing and referred to him as “George” throughout the interview.

Some defense lawyers like to talk about the reptilian brain, the part of our minds that make decisions subconsciously based on whether we see someone as a threat or a friend. It is what has helped us survive for millions of years as a species.

It was obvious to the  non-white jury that Martin was the threat,  the “other’. Zimmerman was a friend.

The jurors, like in the O.J Simpson trial, heard what they wanted to hear. The juror on CNN made clear she had no sympathy with Trayvon Martin’s  witnesses.

That was especially the case with the young woman Rachel Jeantel who spoke a language the juror frankly admitted she could not understand.

In the end, given that, the result was as inevitable as it was predictable. Throw in the useless prosecutors who overcharged to begin with and you had a recipe for Zimmerman getting off scot-free.

Sometimes the law is an ass, it was with O.J and it is now again with George Zimmerman.