Digging Deeper: Blame Has No Shame

[walterrhett]

Read the full article on the blog.
"Blame the victim" is back in fashion! It is the season's rage. It is the hottest trend in American life, not only in politics but in places where justice is supposed to prevail. It is becoming a green light for criminal actions. But blaming the victim breaks down civil society. It hides flaws by pointing fingers. As a cause of action, it is a phony substitute for common sense and courage. Perhaps most insidiously, it is used to justify hero fantasies and is subtly taking over the territory of self-defense.

During a break in the NBA All-Star game, 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, visiting his father in Sanford, Florida, walked to a nearby convenience store to buy a package of Skittles for his brother. He never made it home. He died on the sidewalk, less than a 100 feet from father's house, the Skittles he purchased for his brother still in his pocket. He was shot and killed by the captain of a community watch patrol who confronted Martin after failing to observe an order from the local police command not to intercede. In describing Martin, the patrol captain is said to have used racial terms, saying “They always get away, but not this time.” His family describes Martin as “a good kid.” The reason for the shooting? Self-defense is what the police say the shooter claimed.

The old police shibboleth of self-defense is a ready excuse for those loose cannons with a hero complex, who commit a crime and say: I was left with no choice except to act. That act inevitably invokes violence against others, who many feel deserve it. “Blame the victim” is a justification for meting out personal vigilante justice, outside the rules, with a claim that the victim brought the cause of action on his or her self. What was once self-defense is now “blame the victim.”

In the new moral equation, it's the fault of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin that he was black, that he was glad to do an errand for his brother, that he was excited about spending a weekend with his father, that young black males committed crimes in his neighborhood, that he was found dead unarmed, with no weapon of any kind, that no one can substantiate the claim of self-defense. Yet what is a crime is being dismissed as a tragedy. The claim of self-defense—the implausibility that a young man 100 feet from home would suddenly turn aggressor and cut off any avenue of escape (an important element in a claim of self-defense!)—is actually being accepted by the police, who have not arrested the shooter, who was armed and fired the shot that hit Trayvon Martin in the chest and killed him, 100 feet from home.

Variations on blaming the victim abound. “I was only joking” has been popular recently. It means you really are all those evil things I joke (wink!) about, which I can express as long as I claim them as a form of humor so I don't have to take responsibility. But a speaker is responsible for their speech no matter the form. Entertainment or entertainers don't get a pass to issue verbal beat-downs and claim an exception because it was all assumed to be a joke, or the equivalent of a level of discourse engaged by others. Nor do victims have to endure the violence of words as a presumption of good fun.

For Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, blaming the victim seems to be the only reason he is running. Has he cited any reason for his burning passion to be president? At every turn, he stamps all of the President's actions as “failed” without ever once explaining how a man in his sixth year of running for president finishes third in primaries which were do-overs? Third place, against a former House Speaker censured by his own party and driven from office, against a former Senator who lost his last race by 16 points. I guess if I were third, I would be looking for somebody to blame.

But there is no excuse or defense for blaming an unarmed kid shot in daylight on the sidewalk 100 feet from home for his own death—or for the local police not making an arrest.

[jaxx]

This is what stupid gun laws have brought.....permission to kill. It's outrageous, and now another youth is gone....his crime, being black.
When are people going to wake up and stop this ignorance? The shooter should be in jail and facing life for killing an innocent person. No question about it.

Romney can dance around it, he's useless anyway. And for those who support him, you could be next if your neighbor thinks you're out to get him.

Thanks Walter, you got my dander up with this one.