Symbolism and Bigotry

The violence in the United States, especially among the black community, is simply appalling. On St. Patrick's Day weekend in Chicago, forty people, 40, were murdered. Now we are treated to national outrage over one murder, the Florida shooting of a black teenage boy by a Hispanic man named Zimmerman. At first the killer was white and then became Hispanic, the victim a child and now less so. But any objectivity here is random; all the national stories now have some pre-scripted scenario, some template. The huge picture will be replaced by some focused leveraged emotional narrative. Asians are bad drivers; lacrosse players kill.

Part of this distortion is the progression we have made from individuals of distinction to groups with superficial similarities. One of the characteristics of the original constitution was its preoccupation with individual qualities, individual rights. These don't work quite as well when dealing with mobs.

It may be soon reported that Zimmerman has some Jewish blood.