Wrong Neighborhoods

Tribalism is on the increase, in a public way, all over the world.

Been there done that.
I blame some of that on TV warping my perceptions. Most on being a small town boy done stupid. Like the time I visited Harlem or Watts or any number of places even in Canada City.

Yes, there are neighborhoods that are unsafe but they are if you’re stupid.

I knew a Dootyshire. I once called him friend, but after listening to too many stupid diatribes on how liebruls were wrong on Iraq I stopped hanging out with him. Several years later, he showed up with a mutual friend who was visiting. He nearly caused a riot when he proclaimed that his neighbourhood had too many darkies and he was going to move to a white neighbourhood. The only reason why he didn’t get punched out by six people (including me) was that we were in a bar. I told our mutual friend that he should never invite Dootyshire again.

I’m on the internet too often, and after reading comments here and there and on the National Republic and all that horseshit, I can’t take it, so I’ve stopped. I’m one of the targets of the venom and hatred. I’m part of the group under attack. It scares me, sure, but it also makes me incredibly sad.

White people can choose whether to interact with minorities (unless your car breaks down in a less than desirable neighborhood), but we do not have a choice when it come to interacting with the majority. Ever.

I receive enough pain, insult, even injury from daily interactions — the face-to-face kind — that I do not seek it out online. I can’t, and I won’t.

I’ve been to the SPLC site tracking hate groups (for a class I was in). I wanted to vomit. I still want to vomit. I hate this world.

Meanwhile…

Two sources told WFTV on Monday that gunman George Zimmerman could be arrested this week, and that a Grand Jury will not meet on Tuesday…

State Attorney Angela Corey said she will not use a Grand Jury to decide whether Zimmerman will be charged for killing Martin.

Since I don’t watch L&O, is skipping the Grand Jury significant? Does this mean the DA SA is confident enough to make the charge on her own?

@nojo: From my L&O knowledge, which is not to be confused with actual legal knowledge, the grand jury is convened for the purpose of examining evidence to see what, if any, charges can be brought against a suspect. As for what circumstances preclude the calling of a grand jury, I do not know. However, 99% (99%? Yeah, that sounds good) of cases go to trial without calling a grand jury.

@matador1015: I read today that the Martin family does not want a grand jury convened either. I’m not sure why, assuming that the report is accurate.

A friend of mine, a law school prof who teaches criminal law, pointed out last night that, if Zimmerman’s story is true, he doesn’t need to invoke the Stand Your Ground statute but can rely on the usual principles of the right to self-defense.

Can’t edit for shit on this phone. Whatever.

I meant AZ Republic or whatever.

Just brought home elderly brain damaged and domestically abused (for 15 years) cousin incarcerated off his stroke meds who was one of a handful of blacks in his town. He told me he wondered where the rest of the colored folk were. They were in prison with him. The prison guards jerked me around for five hours before they released him. He was on only one of the seven meds he takes. For over two months. Broken glasses, broken dentures. Soon to be ex wife robbing him blind They split in 2006–his SSDI was being garnished for child support. Okay. Problem is, it’s still being garnished despite the fact he moved back into the house and lived there approx 5 years. So, you know what? People fucking suck on the whole. They really do.

@I’m passing for white: Best commenter-renaming ever.

I got sick on a family road trip in Montana when I was in the 6th grade back in 1972. I think we were looking for a place to stay when my mom or dad woke me up and said we had to move on because the people there didn’t like Indians. We drove through the night and were back in New Mexico the following day.

I have been back to Montana several times in the past few years on a case and have had nothing but very good encounters with the people there. I know how to deal with country people, so that helps. Over all, though, almost all of the racism I have experienced has been by rural native Hispanics here at home.

My “nice” predominately middle class Hispanic neighborhood had another death over the weekend. Some guy running from the cops ran into a stone wall and was ejected from the car. How fucked up must that be to wake up in the middle of the night to see your wall wrecked and a dead guy in the yard? The crash site, about two streets over from mine, is a block from where an escaped con from Arizona was captured last fall, which is on the same block where a guy was shot last year. I heard those shots when I was in the bathroom that night. On the other side of the park is where a guy got shot at a party because someone hated the music he put on.

@nojo: When I was an assistant district attorney, we had the option of doing a grand jury presentation at which the grand jury votes on whether there was probable cause (more likely than not that this guy did that thing) to bring a charge or I could do a preliminary hearing before a judge who would rule whether there was probable cause to support a charge. I liked doing a prelim better. The judge knew the law and I didn’t have to educate laypeople on the elements of a charge and the law. The DA would make the call on whether to do a prelim or take it to a grand jury. I believe the thinking was that we’d go to a grand jury when we felt we didn’t know what the outcome of a hearing would be, so we’d throw it to the grand jury to see what they thought.

AP updates and clarifies:

[Special prosecutor Angela] Corey has long had a reputation for not using grand juries if it wasn’t necessary. In Florida, only first-degree murder cases require the use of grand juries.

So, question answered. No Murder One being planned, but I doubt anyone expected that anyway.

Murder Was the Case…