So the Zimmerman trial is over, although the whole sorry affair goes on. Astonishingly, appallingly, the Justice Department has opened a tip line for people who would like to denounce George Zimmerman as a racist.
Let's stop for a moment and reflect on what we owe to the race-baiters inside and outside the media who fanned and are still fanning the fires of racial animosity around this matter that probably should never have gone to trial in the first place, certainly not as second-degree murder (the detective in charge thought negligent manslaughter a stretch). Why white journalists are so eager to encourage black hostility to whites is a psychological puzzle about which I can only speculate: I suppose it has something to do with the tribalism which causes liberal whites to assume, or at least assert, that most whites are racist and would re-create the segregated society of the pre-1965 South if they only could.
A passionately left-wing acquaintance assured me that this case was "just like Scottsboro" (see here for an account of the Scottsboro case, which began in 1931 with a false accusation of rape). That was one of those moments when one is completely at a loss for words: if there is any comparison to Scottsboro, it's in the volatile mob emotions that have been unleashed, and the associated lack of interest in facts. But this time those dangerous forces favor the black man. No one has ever produced any evidence–and not for lack of effort–that either Zimmerman or the police who accepted his account of the events were operating out of racist motives. It was simply assumed and asserted, treated as self-evident, because they were white, and Martin was black; it was straightforward racial prejudice.
In Zimmerman's case, it was white with qualifications. There's been a good deal of jeering at the journalists and others who insisted on describing him as "a white Hispanic." The jeering was deserved, because they seemed to be and probably were attempting to preserve their "narrative" in which a white bigot stalked and killed an unarmed "child."
But the journalists, whether they knew it or not, were actually following federally-defined standards for racial classification. There actually is, in at least some official racial categories, such a thing as "white Hispanic." I work in education, and we are required to track and report the ethnicity of students. The categories are specified by a federal standard. Up until a few years ago those were: Asian, American Indian/Alaskan, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, Hispanic, and White. A few years ago the scheme was revised: American Indian, Asian, Black, Multi-racial, Pacific Islander, and White. Hispanic was separated, becoming a yes/no flag accompanying one of the other codes. So one can indeed, in this scheme, be a white Hispanic, or for that matter an Asian Hispanic.
Perhaps the idea that "Hispanic" is a race became too much even for the race-counting establishment. (Click here for a glimpse into that odd world.) But given the demands of liberal race-consciousness, eliminating it was unthinkable. The whole thing is pretty bizarre. Presumably "Asian" encompasses not only the Far East (is that phrase still allowed?) but also India and Pakistan, which have nothing much in common, either racially or culturally, with China or Japan. Why should Middle Eastern not also be a "race" in this scheme? A great many Mexicans are racially pretty close to American Indians, certainly closer than to the average Argentinian, but official doctrine puts Mexicans in the box with Argentinians.
To a considerable extent these "racial" categories are, in effect, political categories. The reason for the establishment's extreme concern with them is something of a puzzle to me. I assume that it is well-intentioned for the most part. But its effect is to encourage and preserve divisions that an already-divided society should not be cultivating.
Zimmerman's mother is Peruvian, his father of German descent. It occurs to me that if their ethnicities had been reversed, and the family surname had been Mesa instead of Zimmerman (or better, something like Lopez), this tragic incident, which we can all agree should never have happened, might have remained mostly unknown outside Sanford, Florida. Instead it has become another exercise in sowing the wind, which I'm afraid we'll reap one day.
Light On Dark Water 
Leave a comment