Every time I hear about Geraldo Rivera’s comments on the Trayvon Martin shootings, I always picture him talking to the victim’s family. I picture him sitting there, an expression of Sincere Concern on his face (the one he’s practiced over years of TV “journalism”), perhaps putting a hand on one family member’s knee in a sort of “There, there” gesture. And I picture him trying to explain the position he’s apparently decided is the sensitive, honest and concerned stance to take.
“Yes,” he says, “on the one hand, George Zimmerman did hunt down and kill your unarmed son in cold blood after being instructed by police not to follow him. That’s certainly half the problem. But just as importantly, well…your son wasn’t exactly dressed formally, was he? I think we have to place at least as much of the blame on your son’s clothing choices as we do on the decisions of the raving paranoid who followed your son down the street and then shot him in broad daylight. If he hadn’t been so, well…slovenly…then I feel that there was a very good chance that Zimmerman might have decided your child was ‘one of the good ones’, and left him alone. We’ll never know, of course, but I think that if black people don’t follow the unspoken dress code that white people have decided on for you, then any consequences of that are really on your own head. But, you know, I’m not blaming your bad parenting or your son’s sloppy dress choices. You just didn’t know that wearing a hooded sweatshirt in a nice neighborhood was a possible death sentence for a young black man. Now that you’re aware, I’m sure that you and all your kind will remember your place from now on, and unfortunate incidents like this won’t happen again.”
And he wonders why someone hit him in the face with a chair once…
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This…is perfect.
Interestingly enough – it was a white supremacist who broke his nose with that chair. Ironic? Perhaps.
I want to know when someone is going to hit him in the face again. He certainly deserves it for his ignorant comments.
‘Geraldo, what you have to understand is. When you go around saying controversial things, just to make sure you get additional coverage beyond your audience of 15 viewers, that people have an over-riding urge to throw pieces of furniture at your face. Now certainly, it’s partly the fault of the guy that threw the barco-lounger at you and adding a sleeper sofa was bad form, but at least part of the blame lies with the fact that you’re a sociopathic fuckwad who needs to shut the fuck up.’
(And apparently, he’s a better parent than he is a journalist, because his son called him out for being an ass)
Gerald was embedded w/US troops in Afghanistan. On live TV he drew a map of where the unit he was with was going to attack next. They shipped him home the next day.
And don’t get me started on Al Capone’s secret vault or the great Satanic school cult hysteria…
Bravo!
Rivera is a complete waste of oxygen.
http://geraldoinahoodie.tumblr.com/
Well, remember, in modern journalism, there are two sides to every story, and every opinion has an equal an opposite opinion. Therefore, if someone is gunned down in cold blood, it is essential to find a reason that the other party bore some of the responsibility.
Unless the victim is a photogenic, middle-class white person. There’s an exemption from this rule for them.
So 911 call center operator = “the police” and “we don’t need you to do that” = being instructed by police not to follow him.
Geraldo isn’t the only one handing out click-bait
@jmurphy: So 911 call center operator = “the police”
Um, yes. If you are lying to them, you can be prosecuted for filing a false police (!) report. Go ahead, try it. We’ll wait.
Your thoroughness and thoughtfulness in researching these matters makes you well matched to Geraldo’s side.
jmurphy, what you may not know is that in a large # of jurisdictions (I’m hesitant to say all, but the number is probably 95+% if it’s not 100), the 911 call center operators do work for the police, so are part of the department. They may not be law enforcement officers, but they are members of the police department, subject to the same rules as most officers, etc.
This also isn’t just some technicality. My brother is a police officer, and having been at several of his promotion ceremonies there have often been several operators getting their bumps as well.
I’m not saying Treyvon was completely blameless, there’s still a long way to go before all the facts in the case are seen. But Zimmerman *was* told to stand down, and Geraldo is completely full of shit for saying that black people who wear hoodies are asking to be shot in preemptive self-defense.
Under no circumstance is a passive “We don’t need you to do that” the equivalent of being told to stand down.
Other than I don’t have enough information to hold an opinion on what happened. And neither does anyone else. And we probably never will.
Okay, so from now on we should instruct all 911 operators to actually say “Don’t you dare follow him with a gun you fucking fucktard, somebody could get hurt,” because otherwise some other fucking fucktard with a gun will miss out on the subtleties and somebody will get hurt.
Glad we cleared that up!
@jmurphy. Eh.
I think your argument will fail the ‘reasonable person’ test, i.e. if a reasonable person states they’re taking an action, and the authority figure states that they don’t need them to do that… most reasonable people won’t.
There is enough information to hold an opinion… there’s just not enough information to lock that opinion into stone. An unarmed teenager was shot dead, because an overzealous neighborhood watch captain forced a confrontation, and the incident wasn’t investigated until it became national news.
There is nothing about those facts that isn’t tragic already.
I suspect what will end up being known is that a scuffle began when Zimmerman confronted the kid, and that Zimmerman got the worst of it, based on the original police report of the incident. I suspect that’s why Zimmerman drew, and discharged his firearm claiming that he was afraid for his life (or at least that he was going to get his ass kicked).
Do I believe that the kid started the fight? Not really. Do I believe that he started the fight by going for Zimmerman’s gun (as was briefly claimed), not a chance. Do I believe that when Zimmerman went for his gun the victim scrambled for it? Absolutely, because I would have as well.
But I also believe that if the police force reject Zimmerman had backed off, instead of forcing a confrontation this would never have happened. This situation reeks of Zimmerman starting a fight, losing that fight, and then killing the person who was winning it.
I also believe Geraldo’s ‘Black people should know they’ll get shot if they wear hoodies’ is still fucking stupid, regardless of the facts of the case. The victim in this case could have been carrying a bazooka, and blaming the hoodie would still be the height of sloppy (and stupid) ‘journalism’.
I also think it’s worth mentioning that if the deaths were reversed–if Trayvon Martin had shot George Zimmerman dead with an entirely legally obtained gun, and Zimmerman had been unarmed–there’s no way anyone would believe his story that he felt threatened. Despite being more legally justified under the “Stand Your Ground” defense than Zimmerman, I suspect that the only question we’d be asking is whether Martin should be tried as an adult.
Just my two cents: my mom was a 911 Sheriff’s dispatcher for over a decade. She was DEFINITELY “the police” – and she had a badge and a uniform to prove it.
Part of her job was also to be a warden at the small holding jail at the sheriff’s facility. She tried to get out of it as often as she could because she HATED doing prisoner intakes and cell shake-downs, but that was part of her job, and she was well-trained and (relatively) well paid to do it. So yeah, dispatchers are often “the police.”
[…] A More Brutally Right Summing up of Geraldo Rivera's Words […]
@Christian Williams: In addition to failing the reasonable person test, it will consequently also fail the requirements for the “Stand Your Ground” defense. Obviously, jmurphy is not thorough or thoughtful enough to have any other test in mind (prove me wrong!), but maybe the cute semantic games will be a consolation to Zimmerman in prison.
Part of what demagogues do that bothers me, is that it works. Call a woman a slut, say that a man with Parkinson’s is faking it, or say that a victim deserved it because of how they were dressed, all of that gets attention, which means increased ratings. A sponsor may pull out here or there, but on the whole, I think that it “renews” the demagogue’s brand name. Even getting angry with them and talking or posting about it is a free form of advertising. In some cases. there really is no such thing as bad publicity.
None of which will comfort the family of the victim.
This rant is what is wrong with commenting from a total lack of knowledge.
Under no circumstance is a passive “We don’t need you to do that” the equivalent of being told to stand down.
Maybe not, but did 911 KNOW that he had a gun? Most reasonable people would just need to be told “we don’t need you to do that; the police are coming and can do that” and most reasonable people would back the hell off.
And unless 911 *knew* that he had a gun, I don’t think they’d assume that he had one. If 911 knew that he had a gun, I’d expect a much more strongly-worded statement.
And until very recently the Fox News online store sold hoodies.
@ E Wood Mason: “This rant is what is wrong with commenting from a total lack of knowledge.”
Because there is some combination of facts where we would be applauding Geraldo? If we knew more, we’d all be shaking our heads and wondering why black people are so foolish as to wear sweatshirts?!
Just exactly what facts would suffice? My imagination is failing me. I am finding it much easier to imagine that you’re just saying that douche-y nonsense without anything to back it up. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
Here’s a fun one: Imagine Martin had been a women. Now, for this experiment let’s assume Zimmerman’s story is completely accurate.
So a young woman is walking at night, and she notices she’s being followed. Since outrunning the guy isn’t likely, she does what her self-defense course (taught by a cop) said and angrily confronts him (many courses do teach this; often a potential rapist will abort his attack at that point). Because her course also taught her that “all rules are off” when you feel threatened (also taught in SD courses, to try to overcome social conditioning that you shouldn’t be rude or cause a scene), she hits him, breaking his nose. He falls and hits his head. At some point the man’s gun discharges into her chest and kills her. Did she try to take it and accidentally hit the trigger? Did he shoot? Doesn’t matter.
Now… would that have been handled by the police the same way? “Oh, she was acting suspicious, attacked you after you followed her, and you shot her with a weapon you purposely carried into the confrontation? Okay. Have a nice night.”
(I should correct: It is believed that many rapists will abort an attack if the victim is immediately aggressive.)
@ChrisLowrance:
Completely agree with you. Even if Zimmerman’s story is 100% true, if the victim was different the police wouldn’t have let him go.
Beyond the victim’s demographics though, this is clearly a case where at least some degree of proximate cause should have come into play. But for Zimmerman’s actions (stalking / confronting the victim) there would have been no confrontation / shooting.
It’s all a tragic mess, and it’s only going to get messier before any resolution comes. The chances that there will be anything approaching ‘justice’ are also vanishingly small, there will just be some form of punishment.
What cop in his right mind (especially in the US) responds to a call where a young, unarmed, black male has been shot by an older non-black man, and doesn’t immediately think “Oh boy, we’ve really got to triple-dot the “i”s and triple-cross the “t”s on this one”?
MGK, you have shown me that the vault of Geraldo’s humanistic integrity, while hyped and glorified, is at its core empty.
@John “I also think it’s worth mentioning that if the deaths were reversed–if Trayvon Martin had shot George Zimmerman dead with an entirely legally obtained gun, and Zimmerman had been unarmed–there’s no way anyone would believe his story that he felt threatened”
Given that Zimmerman is Hispanic (and boy am I thanking G-d that the Jews missed out on this one) I’m not sure things would have gone that differently, to be honest.
‘What cop in his right mind (especially in the US) responds to a call where a young, unarmed, black male has been shot by an older non-black man, and doesn’t immediately think “Oh boy, we’ve really got to triple-dot the “i”s and triple-cross the “t”s on this one”?’
And that is precisely the question that provoked the public response in this case.
http://4thletter.net/2012/03/thats-just-the-way-it-is/
Thought I’d link this, it’s a powerful read.
Regarding all the back-and-forth above over who is and who isn’t a police officer…you know who isn’t a police officer?
George Zimmerman. Neighborhood Watch is a step or two below Mall Cop or Stripper Cop in terms of authority.
Considering someone actually has to hire and pay you to be a mall or stripper cop… I’d say watch captain is a bit lower than “one or two.”
Why wasn’t Trayvon Martin allowed to stand his ground? He wasn’t doing anything illegal. And if Zimmerman can use a gun why couldn’t Martin use his fists? He was being stalked by this older guy who was twice his size. Why wouldn’t he feel the need to defend himself?
@Jason
I’m not certain anyone (at least here) is suggesting that Trayvon couldn’t stand his ground, or shouldn’t have stood his ground, or that this incident is his fault.
I’m not saying anyone is. I’m just pointing something out
@Jason & Christian
From over here, it really does look like a lot of people are trying- desperately, horribly, ghoulishly trying to find any justification – any at all for what Zimmerman did.
So, unfortunately, yes at least from my corner of the world it does look like they are trying to find a way to make it this kid’s fault he was gunned down by a jackass with an artificial authority complex.
a bit tardy, this – just browsed my way back today — but, for MGK, and other persistant browsers:
we might merrily recall that H. (own assfat injected to his head as a facelift, i hear) Rivera once interviewed CHARLES MANSON in prison, of course – and told him that “where he grew up, his crowd didn’t send someone else to do their killin'”! — Chuck replied with something like “how ’bout if i jump that table and beat the dogshit out of you – would that make you happy?”
… that HR has ANY credibility is astounding, really …