In Florida, 47-year-old Michael Dunn fired ten rounds from his 9 mm pistol into an SVU full of black teenagers. 17 year-old Jordan Davis was killed in the shooting. Dunn said he felt threatened by the car full of teens and their loud music, which he described as "rap crap." Dunn did not call the police after the event.
Dunn stopped firing his gun after it appeared to him that "the threat was over."
Under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, citizens are "granted immunity from criminal and civil charges" if it can be shown that they "had a reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm or death." "Reasonable" is up to for interpretation, leaving it as a possible defense for Dunn in this case.
Dunn has stated that he is "NOT a murderer." "I am a survivor," he says.
As the author of this article, Carol Anderson, stated: "Dunn saw black and Dunn saw 'threat.' And he still does." While awaiting trial, he wrote that "this jail is full of blacks, and they all act like thugs." Dunn suggested that "if more people would arm themselves and kill these **** idiots when they're threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior."
Carol Anderson asserts that vigilantes and police officers alike are perpetrators of this institutionalized racism. "Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Jonathan Ferrell and the scores of other unarmed African Americans gunned down because the killers felt threatened make that clear," she says. She further asserts society's assumption of "white innocence." "This means that authorities are slow to recognize the threat even of serial killers and certainly by gun-toting shooters in neighborhoods, malls, schools, and airports--if they're white."
Some argue that we live in a post-racial society; that we, especially now with the first presidency of a black man, have virtually eliminated racism. A look at the stop-and-frisk records of the NYPD or film and television's all-too-frequent subtly stereotypical depiction of persons of color will say otherwise.
Institutionalized racism, as well as societal racism in general, is horrendously rampant in this nation. It is why a young black boy out for a stroll can be called a thug and shot down for no reason. It is why shooters like George Zimmerman, and hopefully not Michael Dunn, escape the law (or at least, what we claim the law should be). It is why, as Anderson points out in her article, "whites and Hispanics are two-thirds of all crack users in the United States; yet...79% of sentenced crack offenders in 2009 were black."
The discouraging truth is that when it comes to race relations, America is still very unhealthy. We don't know how long it will take to really fix this. But hopefully it won't take as long as it took for the nation to end slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and all of the other broken ideas and immoral laws from this path in America's history.
Article: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/opinion/anderson-dunn-trial/index.html?hpt=us_mid
This story is awful. The prevalence of racism today is disgusting, and the fact that he actually has a defense for his actions makes it even worse. In all of the recent deaths of black males shot simply because they were perceived as a threat from the social stigma surrounding them, it's clear that we aren't nearly as progressed in race relations as we like to think we are. I hope that laws are repealed or put into place that help to prevent deaths like these, but also to help the killer get justice for his actions.
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