4 Unhinged, Offensive Reactions to the Zimmerman Verdict

Ted Nugent Live (Photo credit: The Toad)

By Kristen Gwynne

Following a six-person, all-female jury’s acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s klller George Zimmerman this weekend, media and individuals on the both the right and left have responded with a hail storm of insensitivity that amounts to an outright white-supremacist defense of the racial profiling that killed not just one, but countless Black teenagers presumed guilty by racist enforcers of “justice.” While families across America are grieving and worrying about the safety of their Black sons, plenty of other Americans are showing up to make sure they know they damn well should be afraid, because stereotypes about Black criminality are not going anywhere soon.

1. Ted Nugent

Known racist and gun advocate Ted Nugent took some time away from his “Black Power” tour to smear Black America’s reactions to George Zimmerman’s acquittal. Ranting on the right-wing site Rare, Nugent writes that Trayvon Martin was a “dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe” who deserved the bullet Zimmerman shot into his chest.

Here’s what the bigoted country star wrote in full:

“The race-baiting industry saw an opportunity to further the racist careers of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Black Panthers, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, et al, who then swept down on the Florida community refusing to admit that the 17-year-old dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe Trayvon Martin was at all responsible for his bad decisions and standard modus operendi of always taking the violent route.”

Martin had trace amounts of marijuana in his system at the time of his death, which neuroscientist Dr. Carl Hart pointed out could not possibly have contributed to any aggression (not that marijuana use is linked to as much, anyway) the night he was killed. Rather than acknowledge this reality (and that whites use marijuana at much higher rates), Nugent peddles the racism-fueled myth linking drug use to bad behavior in Black people.

Read More 4 Unhinged, Offensive Reactions to the Zimmerman Verdict | Alternet.