|
[quote][i]Originally posted by TerryBadway[/i]@Jan 24 2004, 02:22 PM
[b] From a black man's GOB....
The fact that race was brought up as an issue doesn't sicken me at all. What's actually sickening is that Kobe's race was an issue for the publics to debate his credibility from day 1. Sadly, in the year 2004 a large portion of our society has already presumed Kobe as guilty. The only evidence needed to support their theorem is the notion that "black men are capable of these sorta things".
Just look at the CNN/Netscape/etc. message boards for evidence of this type of thinking......
Point being GOB (And I've generally found your thinking to be fair and well thought-out) race was already a factor in this trail. Kobe is being tried in a region of this country where the jury peer base is skimpy. The defense needs to use race to "Support Innocence" in order to deflect and combat soceity's use of race that "Assumes Guilt".
Now, if the defense team played a copy of [b][u]Rosewood[/u][/b] for the jury that would be a sickening use of the race card. [/b][/quote]
Terry,
I appreciate your point of view and can understand what you are saying. When I look back and take a second look, I can see where you are coming from. I guess that being a person that doesn't look at the color of a person, rather the person inside, I saw that article and immediately got upset because, like you said, here it is 2004, and "we" (A Majority of Americans) as a society are still stuck in a world of skin color. I will not deny that there are many people whose opinion on the Kobe case is based solely on skin color. On one side of the coin, you have a minority of absolutely clueless white people running around thinking a black man is automatically guilty because a) he's black, or B) his alleged victim is a white woman. On the flip side of the coin, there are minority of blacks who feel that these are trumped up charges because the victim happens to be white and the accused black.
I guess the problem I have is the notion some people hold that if Kobe was a white man, he wouldn't be charged. I think that Kobe's lawyer was wrong when she planted the defense seed yesterday, stating 'black men have long been falsely accused of rape by white women." I guess I see that as a sterotype and it upsets me because it reminds me of one I constantly get falsely accused of, that being, "I'm a white cop so I'm automatically racist, or out racially profiling". I see her comment as being the same as if to say, "white cops have a long history of falsely accusing black men". I guess I run into it to much that it has become a major thorn in my side. I try my damndest to be fair
Playing devils' advocate, I can't imagine there are many white people that would be comfortable with an all black jury if the alleged victim were black so I can see Kobe's, and for that matter, other black people's concerns.
I guess what's sickening, is the fact that it's 2004, and we're still knee deep in this long racial divide. Sometimes I feel that trials like this, and more specifically the OJ Simpson trial, cause that divde to get wider instead of bring everyone together. And painfully let's admit it, when this first came out we all (blacks and whites) knew exactly where this was going........down the racial road to white vs. black.
Personally, I think the accuser us full of smack. I think she knew what she was doing, regretted it the next day, and used this accusation to cover up the story. The sad part, is I've seen it before at work.
|