Trayvon / Zimmerman Incident - Sometimes bad situations hurt more than just the people involved

If you have been following the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman incident then you are aware of how much attention this story has received and how much affect it has had to the people watching the events unfold and those close to the 2 individuals involved.
But what about those who have nothing to do with the whole incident? You’d be amazed who ends up hurt by these kinds of incidents even though they have nothing at all to do with them. Innocent bystanders one could call them. Casualties of war in essence.

One of the stories I heard was about an elderly couple who’s address was tweeted (and apparently continues to be retweeted) as being George Zimmerman’s home. Sadly enough this couple has since been harassed by people on Trayvon’s side of the argument including Spike Lee who was one of the people who retweeted the tweet and being so prominent in the Black community made what was a bad situation worse. So much that he had to tweet an apology for his mistake and to ask people not to do such a thing again but the damage has already been done and all because people jumped to conclusions too soon and expected justice to be swift. I know cause I jumped myself at first but wiser minds opened my eyes to my “Judge Dredd” style of judging and although I still believe Zimmerman murdered Trayvon due to the facts we have so far, I will not go on a witch hunt and instead allow the system to do it’s job under the watchful eyes of the American people.

I know this may not mean much but I apologize to this couple for these people’s ignorance, stupidity and senseless actions that have forever changed and possible ruined their lives. And all because they happen to have a son called William George Zimmerman. Such a shame people did not even bother to check the facts before jumping to such terrible conclusions. The story is below.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/spike-lee-incorrectly-tweets-address-of-george-zimmerman/

But the damage does not end with them. I also came across someone else who has been affected by this and could potentially have financial damages. Apparently a 20 Century Fox movie studio called 21 Laps Production was had been working on a film since 2008 called Neighborhood Watch, of all things. Staring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, movie set to hit theaters on July 27^th 2012. But considering the title, this movie has no relation to the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident and even more the premise of the movie is of a scifi/comical nature and has nothing to do with the type of neighborhood watch that Zimmerman was conduction.

Basically the movie is about a neighborhood watch group composed of friends looking to have some me time who happen to discover a plot to destroy the world, by aliens. Now, it’s pretty obvious the conflict here. Although the movie is scifi/comedy and is about watching for aliens who want to destroy the world, the movie stands to be caught up in the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident especially since the first trailer (see link below) failed to show any scenes that would indicate the neighborhood watch group was looking for aliens and instead shows a group of paranoid men questioning a kid, of all things. It’s stands to reason this will definitely indirectly hurt movie sales but the producers will try to curb this issue by releasing new trailers with more details about the actual plot of the movie which is aliens. Hopefully they succeed as the concept of the movie does sound good and these guys are definitely hilarious and great actors even if we are currently dealing with a horrible event closely related to the movie premise.

Good luck to the movie studio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2X-R_PR6xs

This goes to show how easy it is for our actions to have undesired and regretful results. It’s why although we should not stop fighting for justice and allow this incident (and many others like it) to get swept under a rug, we need to be more responsible of our reaction to these incidents as it is unfair for anyone to have to have their lives disrupted just because there is a small but non-related connection between them and the incident.
One good example of what not to do when such an incident has so much attention that ignorant comments could cause riots and such is this website below. The title of the post:

Misconceptions in the Trayvon Martin Case

The editor, Dan Linehan, attempted to clear up what he considered misconceptions about Trayvon and Zimmerman except his post was not only bordering on bias but can easily be seen as an attack on Trayvon himself considering none of the misconceptions in the post put Trayvon is a positive view. The post got so much negative attention the editor-in-chief had to post a response of his own to the complaints and about the posts. The editor-in-chief being a friend of Dan tried his best to point out all the things that were wrong with the post while not insulting his friend in the process but in the end it was obvious even he had to admit Dan Linehan went too far and did a poor job writing the post. So much so that even though he considers Dan to have done a stellar job investigating the misconceptions, he still had to say in essence that Dan screwed up, royally, even if he doesn’t say it directly.

I read most of the post and to be honest I found it father disturbing and down right disgusting that this person would even be considered a journalist. A journalist reports he doesn’t express his opinions or his point of view about what he reports. At that point it becomes a blog and not journalism. Every misconception he tackles screams of what “he” thinks should be the correct interpretation. There is very little investigating, factual points and even observations. All I read was point after point of how Trayvon literally deserved to be shot and how Zimmerman was just doing the country a favor. If anything I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dan is definitely a brave man to even dare post such an article considering the number of people who would want to do harm to him because of his opinions.

I can not accept the editor-in-chief’s claim that Dan “was not acting out of malice or any particular political agenda”. I am a firm believer that people mean what they say and his article said a lot, enough to warrant an editor-in-chief response as an article of it’s own. If this was journalism, it was irresponsible journalism; it was idiotic, careless and unprofessional. Worthy of a “Failed” award if one existed.

http://www.wagist.com/2012/dan-linehan/misconceptions-in-the-trayvon-martin-case

Stick to the facts and allow the system to play its role as judge and jury.

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