Above: Twitchy.com, a new website run by conservative asshole Michelle Malkin, ran a "motivational poster" juxtaposing an image of George Zimmerman in a suit with an image of Trayvon Martin, shirtless and giving the finger. Only whoooooooops that is not Trayvon Martin—at least not the Trayvon Martin murdered by George Zimmerman. And instead of being tremendously mortified by this gross compound racism, Malkin's outfit just crosses out a few lines and adds a casual correction, no big whoop. Just the totally common mistake of using a picture of the wrong young black man to make the point that another young black man who'd been murdered is a thug that deserved it. Happens to everyone!
My contempt for Malkin is cavernous.
In other news, the new meme is that Martin attacked Zimmerman, because we should definitely trust the account from the police force that still has not accounted for the whereabouts of Martin's phone, and that he was a troublemaker with multiple suspensions from school, because that definitely justifies killing him.
The national dialogue about this case is so fucking sick. After years of writing about the rape culture, you'd think I'd be used to this sort of reprehensible victim-blaming, but I never get used to it. I'm not surprised by it; I just never get numb to the incredible urge to try to find a reason why someone deserved to be victimized by violence.
Think Progress has a list of What Everyone Needs To Know About The Smear Campaign Against Trayvon Martin, which Judd ends with this: "Clearly, there are two different versions of the events that transpired on February 26, the night Trayvon was killed. There are conflicting statements by witnesses and conflicting evidence as to who was the aggressor. Zimmerman has the right to tell his side of the story. But his opportunity to do this will come in a court of law after he is charged and arrested. In the meantime, Zimmerman's supporters should stop trying to smear the reputation of a dead, 17-year-old boy."
For fucking real.
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