I've been writing for years about what Tom Wolfe calls the "mania for the Great White Defendant." Here are some links to this recurrent phenomenon in fact and fiction:
The only way to have any effect on how more than few people are equipped to think about the world is to repeat yourself over and over.
Here's the paragraph where Wolfe introduced the concept in the Great New York Novel in 1987. Three assistant district attorneys are discussing a case that had interested the publicity-mad head D.A., known as Captain Ahab:
Bonfire of the Vanities on the Great White Defendant
Duke Lacrosse Hoax
The Jena Six
Nestor Camacho in Tom Wolfe's Back to Blood
Quentin Unchained
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The KKK at Oberlin
Marco McMillian
Law & Order: the 100% irony-free Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe v. Dick Wolf
Chandra Levy and Rep. Gary Condit
Amanda Knox: The Hot White Defendant
Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman
The only way to have any effect on how more than few people are equipped to think about the world is to repeat yourself over and over.
Here's the paragraph where Wolfe introduced the concept in the Great New York Novel in 1987. Three assistant district attorneys are discussing a case that had interested the publicity-mad head D.A., known as Captain Ahab:
Every assistant D.A. in the Bronx, from the youngest Italian just out of St. John's Law School to the oldest Irish bureau chief, who would be somebody like Bernie Fitzgibbon, who was forty-two, shared Captain Ahab's mania for the Great White Defendant. For a start, it was not pleasant to go through life telling yourself, "What I do for a living is, I pack blacks and Latins off to jail." Kramer had been raised as a liberal. In Jewish families like his, liberalism came with the Similac and the Mott's apple juice and the Instamatic and Daddy's grins in the evening. And even the Italians, like Ray Andriutti, and the Irish, like Jimmy Caughey, who were not exactly burdened with liberalism by their parents, couldn't help but be affected by the mental atmosphere of the law schools, where, for one thing, there were so many Jewish faculty members. By the time you finished law school in the New York area, it was, well ... impolite! ... on the ordinary social level ... to go around making jokes about the yoms. It wasn't that it was morally wrong ... It was that it was in bad taste. So it made the boys uneasy, this eternal prosecution of the blacks and Latins.
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62 comments:
KKK guy at Oberlin? They find him yet?
I'll bet he was the one who killed Nicole Simpson.
What if Zimmerman had been a mulatto?
It woulda been funny.
'White black' kills a black kid.
South African guys in LETHAL WEAPON II.
Jason Richwine.
James Watson.
Stephanie Grace.
Bernie Goetz
To be sure, there is the phenomenon of the Big Black Criminal.
Because blacks commit a lot of crime, some non-blacks will say a 'black guy' did it to cover up their own crimes. It may not be often, but it happens.
Susan Smith killed her own kids and blamed a black guy. Some guy in Boston killed his wife and shot himself in the stomach and blamed it on a black guy.
"NAACP Is 'Outraged And Heartbroken,' And Will Pursue 'Civil Rights Charges' Against George Zimmerman"
http://www.businessinsider.com/george-zimmerman-not-guilty-naacp-verdict-civil-rights-2013-7
"The NAACP said late Saturday that it was "outraged and heartbroken" over the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, vowing to pursue "civil rights charges" with the Department of Justice.
"We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict," said Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP. "We stand with Trayvon’s family and we are called to act. We will pursue civil rights charges with the Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state, and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed."
Zimmerman was found not guilty in the 2012 death of teenager Trayvon Martin. The jury determined that he was not guilty of both second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Defense attorney Mark O'Mara said in a press conference after the verdict was read that he doesn't expect Zimmerman's days in court to be over.
"We'll see how many civil lawsuits will spawn from this fiasco," O'Mara said."
I hope he sues NBC over that doctored 911 call and soaks that filthy network for every buck he can get.
on the show Criminal Minds, pretty much every killer they catch is a white male.
the crimefighters are of course a diverse group including women, a black guy and a hispanic
Wasn't some Atlanta Olympics guy falsely charged of setting off bombs?
Sarah Palin blamed for Arizona shooting.
Libs prayed that it would be Tea Party guys who'd blown up Boston.
Another hilarity in America is the
Great Muslim Defendant.
I knows lots of Muslims are nuts, and most terrorists are Muslim, but judging by conservative panic of America turning into a sharia nation under 'stealth Muslim' Obama, I gotta crack up. Lots of looniness all around.
Mr. Sailer, did you want to add to your list Tawana Brawley's Al Sharpton-amplified accusation of rape against Steven Pagones?
Years ago I was talking to a liberal friend and I remarked that "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a fictional film made from a novel. In other words, it didn't happen in real life,
You should have seen the expression on his face.
Great White Villain would be the movie adaptation of "The Sum of All Fears"
Caucasians at it again...
Minority Report.
Old Nordic white guy done it.
Because blacks commit a lot of crime, some non-blacks will say a 'black guy' did it to cover up their own crimes. It may not be often, but it happens.
Yeah. Whenever anyone finds bugs in my code I tell my bosses that a black guy did it.
That gets a laugh.
OLEANNA
and other stories about campus PC witch hunt where white professors--often liberals(haha)--were accused of 'sexual harassment', insensitivity, or some such.
I recall a liberal Jewish professor was attacked cuz he asked a black student to stand up in class and read something about slavery that bound Jews and blacks together. The black kid didn't get it, and the professor got dragged into sensitivity training class.
Clarence Thomas was like a Great White Defendant as a black guy. His conservatism made him into an honorary black guy, the evil attacker of Anita Hill.
Ironically, Bill Clinton was the Great White Defendant for the conservatives. Why that uncaring sexual harassing bastard!
I hope he sues NBC over that doctored 911 call and soaks that filthy network for every buck he can get.
He definitely should do it!
"We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict," said Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP. "We stand with Trayvon’s family and we are called to act. We will pursue civil rights charges with the Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state, and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed."
That's rich, given that Zimmerman is about as black as Jealous is. What will the bills to strike down SYG laws be called, I wonder - The Kill Whitey act of 2014? Django's Law?
Great Muslim Defendant.
I knows lots of Muslims are nuts, and most terrorists are Muslim, but judging by conservative panic of America turning into a sharia nation under 'stealth Muslim' Obama, I gotta crack up. Lots of looniness all around.
Hold it hold it hold it.
Who did 9/11? Le'ts not pee pee all over tonight's joyful occasion.
You may want to think US is soooo anti muslim and islamophobia etc. come on.
Who commits these waves of honor killings, Jews? No. Who then?
Let's allllll get along on this wonderous night, shall we?
Great Muslim defendant. Yeah right. More like 'Great Muslim victim'
I have to think that much of the media consists of useful idiots/true believers. They make such foolish decisions about the 'crimes' that fit the narrative. If they knew they were lying, then they would vet the incidences before screeching. Anyone who new anything about the color of crime would have doubted that four white Duke Lax players raped Crystal Gail Mangum on statistical grounds. They wouldn't just accept such an improbable story because they'd look foolish when the truth came out.
With Zimmerman, anyone who knew anything would assume self-defense, and investigate closely before starting a conversation about how awful 'profiling' young blacks as thugs and criminals with a thug burglar like Trayvon as exhibit A.
Does anyone else remember way back when, like the 90's or so? Used to be that only right-wingers and survivalist types predicted black rioting. Surely tv people realize how 'racist' their riot fears are. I'd think the riot 'concerns' were threats, except SWPL whites tend to live closer to blacks. The rural rednecks won't be taking the brunt of any blacklash.
Another honorary white guy defendant was the black editor-in-chief of THE DARTMOUTH REVIEW in the early 90s.
I forgot his name but he had to play defense because someone pulled a Hitler hoax on the masthead of the paper.
The funniest Dartmouth Review piece was by Keeney Jones who came up with DIS SHO AINT NO JIVE BRO.
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=keeney_jones_1
Steve, check out sites like gawker and salon, pretty unreal.
Hmm, I'm agnostic on Knox. It isn't a Renaultian frame-up if she also knew details of the murder scene. But those Italian legal eagles ended up even more beclowned than Seminole County's
2013 has not been a very good year for the Sub Saharans.
First the Sub Saharan Chris Dorner is burned to death by a bunch of creepy ass LAPD crackas and now the creepy ass cracka George Zimmerman is found not guilty of the murder of the Sub Saharan Trayvon Martin.
Wesley Snipes is wrong, you can't always bet on black.
[QUOTE]on the show Criminal Minds, pretty much every killer they catch is a white male.
the crimefighters are of course a diverse group including women, a black guy and a hispanic[/QUOTE]
On the tv show Law And Order S.V.U like 95 percent of the killers on the show are White, even though Law And Order takes place in the most vibrantly diverse city in the world, New York City.
You rarely see an African American, Dominican, or Puerto Rican killer on Law And Order, even though those 3 ethnic groups are responsible for the vast majority of the homicides in New York City.
Knox lived there, so yeah she knew where she lived. What's more likely, African immigrant drug dealer rapes and murderers vic while others oit, or middle class White girl does it?
Women almost completely lack violence and sadism. Group think enforcers, another story. But mean girls don't do drive bys or brutal murders. That's a male drug dealer thing.
Whiskey on Nook HDPlus.1
I'm afraid I agree with Ann Coulter on Amanda Knox: guilty as charged.
But yeah, she's hot.
What if Zimmerman had been a mulatto?
He is a mulatto - one of his grandfathers is black, or part-black.
NY Giants star Victor Cruz puts dog-whistle hit on Zimmerman via Twitter. Read it at Breitbart.
Very brave. I wonder how his brother Hispanics will react.
"With Zimmerman, anyone who knew anything would assume self-defense, and investigate closely before starting a conversation about how awful 'profiling' young blacks as thugs and criminals with a thug burglar like Trayvon as exhibit A."
True, but the human mind thinks in terms of patterns and templates.
If people hear about something, it automatically fits into preconceived patterns. We all do it. If we come upon a news story and hear the words 'black' 'assault' and 'white', we automatically 'think' in terms of black male attacked white person even before we've read the story carefully. Our preconceived pattern may jibe with the actual story, but we don't know the truth until we've absorbed the real story. As it stands, conservatives have a better patternistic sense of racial reality in America than many liberals do. Of course, smart and experienced liberals know what we know, but they keep mum about it cuz it would undermine the holy alliance on their side between 'progressive whites' and 'underprivileged blacks'. Also, if liberal elites admit to the truth of racial patterns, it will more difficult to play on 'white guilt' in order to weaken conservatives and keep them on the moral defensive. If indeed blacks are behind most crimes and truly to be feared for real and rational reasons, there's less reason for whites to feel guilty about. Whites can feel justified in not wanting to integrate with blacks.
Patterns can be inscribed in the mind by real-life experience. Or it can be placed into your mind through movies and TV. Because of the power of moving images and sound on screens big and small, movies and TV are more than entertainment or media. They are felt and experienced as a kind of ersatz reality. It's like even if you haven't been at Normandy or seen actual combat, you feel you were there after seeing SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Even if you haven't been in a Nazi death camp, the horrors of SCHINDLER'S LIST can make you feel as if you've seen the real thing. For those who've seen DJANGO UNCHAINED, what they hear about the south will fall into the pattern as set down by that movie.
The liberal mind has been patterned with movies like TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, MISSISSIPPI BURNING, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, THELMA AND LOUISE, EASY RIDER, DJANGO UNCHAINED, MACHETE, and Norman Rockwell's painting of a little black girl in a white dress going to school. And of course images and sounds of saint prophet of MLK and the narrative of Emmett Till and lynchings and all those Civil Rights era footages of whites yelling bad words.
So, when they hear of 'white male' and 'dead black boy', their minds automatically project a mental movie of some redneck killing an innocent angelic black child.
Even before they think, patterns automatically kick into gear, and 'white male' and 'black boy' conjures images of the same old morality tale. For many, such patterns are enough, and so, they don't even bother to think and question the story to any real extent, not least because they wanna go back to the latest gossip about Lady gaga.
Most of the time, the preconceived patterns in our minds do 90% of the 'thinking' for us.
We are less rational than patternal, and this was of course necessary for our evolutionary survival. When an organism sees something move in nature, it has to quickly decide or maybe face biocide. Is the object friend or foe? Should the organism stand or should it run? If a deer sees something moving, it has no time to think or check things out. If at first glance the object looks like a predator--even if it isn't--, the deer must take off and take no chances. Our minds developed that way. Patterns could mislead us, but not noticing them and standing around for a rational understanding of the truth could lead to death. So, if primitive man saw something move in the bush and it looked like a lion, he just ran and climbed a tree. If he figured, "gee, I aint sure what it really is, so I'm go closer and see", he could get killed if it was indeed a lion.
It's like if Negroes hear popping noises in the hood, they run for cover. They figure it's gunshots and they aint gonna stand around to wonder what the sounds might really be or where they're coming from. Just duck for cover first.
In a way, what Zimmerman did was try to go beyond patternizing. He saw a black kid and thought, 'hmm, he could be a criminal'. But Zimmerman wanted to be sure. Instead of jumping to conclusions via patternizing, he wanted to see who or what Martin really was. His patternal thinking proved to be correct as Martin indeed proved to be a thug. But, Zimmerman was trying to act rational than just patternal. If he had thought only patternally, he could have just lied to 911 and said, 'there's a black kid dressed in such and such clothes burglarizing the neighborhood, please send the police right away'. Zimmerman's patternal mind suspected a burglar, but he wasn't sure, and he wanted to be sure, and so, he trailed Martin to be sure. If anything, he was being fair-minded.
But then, it goes to show that investigative rationalism can be dangerous as Martin proved to be something more than a burglar. He was a predator.
Of course, Zimmerman was was racially profiled and even racially projected(whiteness onto his brownness) by the liberal media. Even as the liberal media condemned the alleged racial profiling of Martin by Zimmerman, the media racially profiled Zimmerman as 'white racist killer'. Without knowing all the facts, he was guilty of a 'racist murder' since he shot a 'black kid armed only with skittles'. Without knowing Zimmerman's background and the full story of what happened that night, he was instantly profiled into 'southern white male racist murderer'.
So, who gets to form the patterns in our minds? The controllers of education, media, advertising, entertainment. Most of our ability to 'think' about the world is implanted into us during that process.
Of course, we can rationally think beyond the patterns formed or planted in our mind--and patterns or paradigms can even gradually change in our minds--, but most of the time, we just rely on the patterns within our mind to take whatever information/stimuli and fit them into the preconceived puzzle. Since facts, especially incomplete ones, are malleable, they can be made to fit in just about any way according to the demands of the mind pattern.
Those who control the patternizing process pretty much control the mind. Even before people get to thinking rationally, the terms 'Muslim' and 'Palestinian' conjures up evil killers of innocent Jews as Holocaust victims.
Even before we think rationally, the terms, 'the south' and 'white male' conjures up images of Bull Connor and all them helpless Negroes who just wanna drink from the same water fountain.
The rapists in that Jody Foster flick based on real life were changed to white.
.
"I hope he sues NBC over that doctored 911 call and soaks that filthy network for every buck he can get."
Amen to that. Apart from anything else the best way to defend himself against the civil rights lawsuits is to attack the media on their distortions.
.
"is to repeat yourself over and over"
yup, only way
Re: Steve, check out sites like gawker and salon, pretty unreal.
At your recommendation I went there. "Unreal" doesn't even begin to describe it...
"NY Giants star Victor Cruz puts dog-whistle hit on Zimmerman via Twitter."
Cruz is a mulatto, Zim is mostly a mestizo. Not a lot of amor lost there. I've searched the Internet for Carlos Mencia's and George Lopez's reactions. Nothing.
I think it's safe to start calling it The Great American Novel now.
Geraldo, who is half-Jewish and half-Puerto-Rican, is sticking by Zim:
"Rivera was speaking on "Fox & Friends" just as Zimmerman's defense attorneys prepared to deliver their closing argument, thus bringing the trial to a close. He said he had always felt that the case was one of total self-defense on Zimmerman's part, and he blamed Al Sharpton for the case having been brought to trial at all."
The coverage at Gawker and the Huffington Post is all-out outrage. The photo atop the NYT story I looked at is a black lady crying, surrounded by her kids. Of course that doesn't tell us whether or not there will be riots. Would-be rioters don't read the Huff Post. But the MSM isn't downplaying this at all.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/13/AP-Reporter-on-Zimmerman-Verdict-So-We-Can-All-Kill-Teenagers-Now
Typical case of liberal speaking in tongues.
Moral narcissism/supremacism is ingrained in their psyche.
"The Great American Novel now."
Second quarter century and it's still going.
http://rt.com/usa/zimmerman-acquittal-nationwide-protests-071/
Check out the photos.
World War Zimmerman.
Such liberal zombie drones.
So does Wolfe always tell and not show?
"So does Wolfe always tell and not show?"
No. The best line in the book is near the end where the GWD comes out of the holding cell with cut ruhknuckles.
"Check out the photos."
I think a lot of white liberals could be about to get et.
"At your recommendation I went there. "Unreal" doesn't even begin to describe it..."
Steve was right, it really is amateur hour on Saturday night. That Campos article looks like he typed it up in ten minutes. Maybe he did.
Don Imus
"I guess the 'white guilt' thing built around the mythology of the nobly tragic magic negro and the nasty redneck white villain has clouded the white liberal mind."
Soviet thinking. And they will keep thinking that way right up until the roof caves in.
Just keep looking for ways to make money from this willful stupidity. It's low hanging fruit.
Steve, here is a book suggestion for you: A non-fiction book "The Hunt for the Great White Defendant"
Mr. Sailer must admit that his writing is unlettered compared to Theo Tait's.
Ever more insular and self-regarding, the MSM is feeling the anger and frustration of high school seniors who have discovered that, contrary to rumors circulating round school for months, the prom will not be held on a cruise ship, after all. “But everybody said so!” they wail. They were sure Zimmerman was guilty of cold-blooded murder and would be found guilty of same, and all their friends thought so, too!
Nobody likes being hoist on the petard of his own hubris, as the collective NY Times hissy fit, evoking Pauline Kael’s ‘I don’t know anyone who voted for Nixon,’ demonstrates.
"I'm afraid I agree with Ann Coulter on Amanda Knox: guilty as charged."
"But yeah, she's hot."
Not really. She's got one of the most evil faces I've ever seen. I can't get past the evil look. It overcomes any hotness. That bitch is soooo guilty. "The eyes Chico, they never lie."
Why watch such trash?
Dan Kurt
@anon: "Susan Smith killed her own kids and blamed a black guy. Some guy in Boston killed his wife and shot himself in the stomach and blamed it on a black guy."
Yep. Susan Smith case was in 1994 and the Charles Stuart case was in 1989. So, pretty much two cases in nearly 25 years.
@anon: "... "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a fictional film made from a novel. In other words, it didn't happen in real life..."
So wasn't "Roots."
"ot really. She's got one of the most evil faces I've ever seen. I can't get past the evil look. It overcomes any hotness. That bitch is soooo guilty. "The eyes Chico, they never lie.""
I know a psychic who has worked for the legal system. Yes, I know it's considered silly etc., but this person has a track record. He said that he see "cords" coming from the back of a person's neck when they have murdered. Perhaps the circumstances of the murder are significant, I don't know. But when he saw Knox's photo, he saw cords from her neck.
OTOH, in the Casey Anthony trial, he said the jury had done the right thing and listened only to the evidence and narrative, and not the public zeitgeist. The mother was indeed innocent of murder, regardless of her other sins. He actually based this more on his reading of the facts than what he saw in the photo. In the case of Knox however, he based his opinion on what he saw.
It think what the Left wants, literally, a lowering of the burden of proof when a white (or "white") person is on trial for killing a black person. They should just come right out and say it.
-Notchoan
It think what the Left wants, literally, a lowering of the burden of proof when a white (or "white") person is on trial for killing a black person. They should just come right out and say it.
They're not going to come out and say it, Notchoan. That would leave them open to all sorts of irritating "subverting the Constitution" accusations. It's much safer to accuse anyone who doesn't agree with them of racism. Then the ball is firmly back in your court, where they like it. Prove you're not a racist, racist! (The only way you can prove it, according to them, is to agree with them.)
In the case of Amanda Knox, the victim was a half-white British student. And John Follain's book 'Death in Perugia' convinces me that Knox, and her "boyfriend" Raffaele, were involved in the thing somehow. The boyfriend was a freak who watched sadistic porn, carried a knife and had no friends. Knox seems to have been a dope-fuelled egomaniac.
To me the worst was what happened to Gary Condit. The media just wouldn't shut up about it. It was a slow news summer and until Mr. Bin Laden supposedly took down the towers the media had no story to push.
Dominique Strauss Kahn
Ted Kennedy's nephew rape case was more iffy.
About that thing were they base a movie on a real story, but then switch races so as to fit the narrative:
When was the most recent movie out that had a white good guy and a black bad guy?
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