Good question and we talked about that on the radio a bit also.

At that point, "TYPE of gender" makes the difference. How is she dressed? If "sexy"-- most assuredly could be onset of sex crime. (then you get into the question of class and the fact that what one class of people thinks is sexy is not necessarily sexy or attractive at all, to another class.) If not, though, and she was polite and obsequious? Could have totally diffused the situation, and made Zimmerman feel like a big hero for caring: win-win.

If she was mouthy? Anyone's guess.

Like the situation above: imagine it if we had been dressed "sexy"--cop might have assaulted us himself. Imagine if we'd become mouthy! Ironically, we might have, if we had been INNOCENT of all crimes! It was actually due to our guilt/fear over having so many drugs on us, that we were so quiet and polite! If we'd acted all self-righteous and angry about being profiled as hippies, we might have gotten ourselves arrested easily. (Instead, we thanked him over and over... obsequious to a fault. He even rolled his eyes at us, we must have been very obviously high.) But he even SAID "you don't belong here" and I almost started to argue... but one of those things about multiple drug-abuse is that you can't remember what you were going to say, so you end up not saying anything at all. But he DID say that to us. A black cop actually told us, in so many words, that young white women don't belong in East Oakland... these days, he could get his badge taken away for being so out front and honest like that. (I've thought a lot about that too.)

The thing about the Zimmerman/Martin altercation being between two males, it became a matter of "bad man/interloper" against "good man/protector of neighborhood"--and that is a primal masculinity-drama, which is why so many people will NOT see it as a racial thing.

Our radio show engineer, Jonathan, quiet-young-wisdom-dude I call him, thinks the whole thing about a female jury is that they did not instinctively understand how MEN view interlopers, which is AS A THREAT. They saw it like women would see it: Mom goes over to see what's wrong and tell everybody to play nice.

I think he is most assuredly onto something and told him he needed to start blogging.

BTW, at our local rally Sunday (see photo I linked), hundreds of black people, and I counted 11 whites. ELEVEN. That's it. Where are all these white women screaming from the roof tops? Because of that 11, there were only 4 white women.

In our local paper, local media, etc... where are all these white women you speak of? Most have defended Zimmerman. I see this as a very racially-divided verdict. I don't see many whites (of any gender) speaking out, and so I do it. At the rally on Sunday, a young (black) woman said she was afraid she would hate all white people due to the verdict, and seeing whites speak out prevented that from happening; reminded her that not everybody buys the racist okeydoke from Fox News, especially here in South Carolina.

That, alone, is enough reason for me to shout from roof tops. I thanked her for her speech. (We got all teary eyed, admittedly.)

As I asked you on Twitter, what exactly would you have white women do? Absolutely nothing? Then of course you'd undoubtedly make fun of us for doing nothing.

And rest assured, most ARE doing nothing. At least around HERE.

I get enough grief from teabaggers, Danny... I really do NOT need it from you too... then, again, you sum up the whole issue with the MRAs: WOMEN (or is it just us women who call ourselves "feminists"?) can't do ANYTHING right, can we? Well, *I* do a helluva lot more for ALL men's rights (not just the white, straight, middle class men)... than those privileged fellas at A Voice For Men.

But for some reason, they will always get your loyalty first.

Am I allowed to comment on this speech? Or does my gender and race automatically mean my opinion is of no importance and I should sit down and shut up?

In moderation.

I'm sure its easy for white women to scream from the roof tops about rights when at the end of the day there is no chance in hell they'd be in Trayvon's shoes.

I scream from the roof precisely for that reason. I guess that doesn't count though, right?

My apologies for not doing activism to your specifications, but I do what I can. (Should I ignore this kind of stuff when it happens?)

I even told a story on the radio: the time me and a friend of mine (also white) were stopped by cops in Oakland, CA, very late at night (might have been early morning by then), both of us carrying various illegal substances. I was on cocaine and LSD and my eyes were likely dilated in extremis. Both of us, messed up, carrying drugs. And what did the (black) cop stop to tell us? (Note: we nearly fainted, and assumed he stopped us because HE WAS GOING TO BUST US). He said, you ladies need to go inside, it is very late and this is a dangerous place and you COULD GET HURT. We were both radical women and were dumbfounded by that. We knew we would have been arrested if we'd been dressed "sexy" (i.e. assumed to be hustling) or non-white. No question. But we were not supposed to be there, and instead of us being blamed for that, we were PROTECTED, and we were BREAKING THE GODDAMN LAW.

We were *so grateful* not to be busted, we were very polite and obedient... my friend did most of the talking since I was nearly catatonic over the whole thing. We talked about it for years afterward. We knew this special treatment was due to race AS WELL AS GENDER, and also being a certain TYPE of gender (looking like clueless, rather asexual hippies in t-shirts). Being young was undoubtedly also a factor.

End result: We nodded, showed the cop our IDs when asked, said thank you, and promptly got on a bus.

That particular outcome of us "not being where we were supposed to be"--is just as real and political as the outcome of Trayvon "not being where he was supposed to be"--and that is why I juxtapose the two and tell the story. If you think that is not adequate, or that I should not be broadcasting that (or shouting from the roofs, or whatever)... well, sorry.

You may have noticed: I do not shut up just because people tell me to, either on the right or on the left.
http://daisydeadhead.tumblr.com/post/56237894275/...

I just mentioned on my blog (in comments) that I think its fascinating all these men's rights blogs have not defended the rights of Trayvon Martin in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, the Good Men's Project excepted.

I was hoping to read something from you too.

I guess its all about WHITE MEN's RIGHTS huh? Not a peep from Genderratic or A Voice for Men... empathy apartheid indeed.

Does their silence give you pause, Danny? It should.

Happy birthday Renee! Sorry to hear of your health problems... I got a few of my own lately, and they most assuredly suck.

GET BETTER and hope you are feeling well soon.

Interesting post, as usual. I am uncomfortable with the concept that women don't need to tell kids who their dads are... in this kind of anti-father environment , what can you expect from a cultural arbiter like the New York Times? I think people are entitled to know who they are (i.e. who they come from) -- but that seems to be a minority view these days.

Since its considered no big deal to lie about who dad is or is not, we now have the new situation of women having babies made with other women's eggs, and they don't find it necessary to tell their children that they are not biologically related . Imagine the shock when you get a DNA test for some reason and discover your mother who bore you is not really your genetic mother? Apparently, some kids get truly angry about it, as they do when denied knowledge of their genetic fathers.

The first situation has helped to cause the second.

The experience of having the children is paramount, by whatever means necessary. If the kids should later be unhappy about that, oh well. Its not about them anyway.

---

PS: I was hoping you'd say some cool stuff about that Jodi Arias movie! I am still withholding a complete post until the sentencing.

What to think of Tarantino's scripts, putting the N word in the mouths of (very talented) black actors like Samuel L Jackson and Ving Rhames, etc? And of course, the recent controversy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/quentin-...

I don't get your love of ballgame, the control freak. He can be very nasty and unforgiving; he judges harshly. I must be missing something.

I loved a couple recent GMP pieces, so I have decided to give GMP another break. No, its not a hellhole.