Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and John Piper

We generally try to avoid racial crime stories here at Faith and Heritage.  We certainly bring up crime statistics from time to time to illustrate racial differences, but the nature of racial crime in America and the West and the format of this site do not lend themselves well to reporting on individual crimes.  The first reason for this is that, with 3-4% of the population of America (black males aged 13-35) committing half the crime, reporting on individual crimes would  resemble the following dialogue: “A young black male murdered/raped/stole/vandalized/assaulted someone/something”; “Oh look, they did it again”; “Oh look, they did it again”; “Oh look, they did it again”; and so forth, even if we just limited ourselves to the particularly heinous crimes.¹  The second reason is that there are already a number of great sites which fill this reporting niche quite well: the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance, Stuff Black People Don’t Like, and others.  That being said, responses to and possible consequences of the shooting of Trayvon Martin warrant further commentary.

The shooting occurred on February 26th in a neighborhood in Sanford, FL, a town of 50,000 people just north of Orlando, FL.  The initial media narrative was that an unarmed black boy was shot and killed by a white vigilante neighborhood watchman, a man who was ten years older and 100 pounds heavier, and who claimed self-defense when the police arrived to avoid arrest.  The story quickly became national news, with the media using the following photos of Martin and Zimmerman:

George Zimmerman

Trayvon Martin

The story sparked mass outrage as it spread via social media.  Celebrities, as well as the usual suspects like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, demanded justice and called for Zimmerman’s arrest.  Jesse Jackson stated in regards to the shooting: “Trayvon is martyr [sic], he’s not coming back, he’s a martyr, murdered and martyred. . . . [B]lacks are under attack . . . targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.”²³  Even Barack Obama went on record to say, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”⁴  The New Black Panther Party offered a $10,000 bounty for Zimmerman’s capture and some of the posters even read: “wanted dead or alive.”⁵  Trayvon Martin was portrayed by the media as “an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness” who “was not a violent or dangerous child” and “not known for misbehaving.”⁶

Unfortunately for the media, a multitude of facts conflicting with their narrative have surfaced as people continue to investigate what actually happened that night.  First of all, far from the white, right-wing racist the media was portraying Zimmerman as, it turns out that he is actually a self-identified Hispanic Democrat.  This was harder to tell from the original pictures the media used of Zimmerman (see above), because they photoshopped Zimmerman so that he would appear almost light enough to be a Spaniard.  In fact, the color in the original photo of Zimmerman is so distorted that Zimmerman’s county orange jumpsuit appears almost red.  This was apparently done to make Zimmerman look white to help bolster their blacks-as-the-perpetual-victim narrative.  The other interesting thing about the original photos is that they are both five to seven years old.  Here are their current photos:

A current picture of George Zimmerman

A current picture of Trayvon Martin

What a difference that makes.

Additionally, the media distortion that Trayvon was “not a violent or dangerous child” and “not known for misbehaving” fell apart quickly once people started digging.  Martin had several large tattoos and gold teeth, he was very probably a drug dealer, and his Tweeter screen name was “NO_LIMIT_NIGGA.”⁷  He was suspended from school multiple times for vandalism, possession of drug paraphernalia, and likely taking a swing at a bus driver.⁸  Additionally, Martin was caught by school officials with burglary tools and a bunch of women’s jewelry that did not belong to him.⁹  In fact, the entire reason that Martin was in Sanford instead of Miami was because he was on a ten-day suspension.  This image of a typical black urban thug is hardly the squeaky clean kid the media has been presenting to us.

Finally, actual eyewitness accounts contradict the media narrative and support Zimmerman’s version of the story.  Kyle Rogers of CofCC.org gets the credit for first focusing attention on these ignored facts and eyewitness accounts in his article for the Charleston Examiner:

The neighborhood this took place in has seen a lot of crime. Would you be surprised to learn that there were eight burglaries, nine thefts, and a shooting just in the past year? In fact, the local homeowners’ association reports that George Zimmerman actually caught one thief and aided in the apprehension of other criminals. The Miami Herald wrote about this on March 17th. None of the thousands of articles and cable news segments that came after, thought this was important.

In fact the Miami Herald goes on to interview neighbor, Ibrahim Rashada, who is black. Rashada ​confirms that there has been a lot of crime in the neighborhood and indicates to the reporter that the perpetrators are usually black.

On Feb. 26, when Zimmerman first spotted Trayvon, he called police and reported a suspicious person, describing Trayvon as black, acting strangely and perhaps on drugs.

Zimmerman got out of his SUV to follow Trayvon on foot. When a dispatch employee asked Zimmerman if he was following the 17-year-old, Zimmerman said yes. The dispatcher told Zimmerman he did not need to do that.

There is about a one-minute gap during which police say they’re not sure what happened.

Zimmerman told them he lost sight of Trayvon and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from the left rear, and they exchanged words.

Trayvon asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cell phone, he told police. Trayvon then said, “Well, you do now” or something similar and punched Zimmerman in the nose, according to the account he gave police.

Zimmerman fell to the ground and Trayvon got on top of him and began slamming his head into the sidewalk, he told police.

Zimmerman began yelling for help.

Several witnesses heard those cries, and there has been a dispute about whether they came from Zimmerman or Trayvon.

Lawyers for Trayvon’s family say it was Trayvon, but police say their evidence indicates it was Zimmerman.

One witness, who has since talked to local television news reporters, told police he saw Zimmerman on the ground with Trayvon on top, pounding him — and was unequivocal that it was Zimmerman who was crying for help.

Zimmerman then shot Trayvon once in the chest at very close range, according to authorities.

When police arrived less than two minutes later, Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a swollen lip and had bloody lacerations to the back of his head.

Generation 5 recently discussed the phenomenon of public displays of piety (PDPs), whereby whites seek to abase themselves, promote non-whites, or praise multiculturalism in a display of “pride dressed up as religious or quasi-religious do-gooding,” all done to increase their social status and reputation.  PDPs are extremely common in average whites today — especially, unfortunately, among pastors and other church officials.  In particular, the evangelical preacher and author John Piper jumped onto the poor-little-Trayvon-mean-old-Zimmerman bandwagon to perform his own PDP in an article entitled “Trayvon Martin, Race, and the Gospel.”  Piper opens with an anecdotal story which is almost certainly a complete fabrication (whether concocted by Piper or another), after which he proceeds to give an abbreviated pro-Trayvon account of the shooting.  He carefully ignores any pro-Zimmerman evidence, then uses this as a segue to jump into a long ramble about how all humans are part of the same undifferentiated, amalgamated body.  He then ends in a sickeningly pietistic prayer about love that Zimmerman should have prayed instead of killing Trayvon for no reason.

Pastor Bret McAtee has made two great points in rebutting John Piper’s article on Piper’s Facebook page.  First, in regards to Piper’s use of Hebrews 13:3:

Where do we find any evidence that either Trayvon or Zimmerman confess Christ and so are in the body?   [This verse is about] empathy with FELLOW CHRISTIANS who are in the body of Christ.  This sounds like Count Nicholas Von Zinzendorf’s wounds of Jesus mongering that he later repented of. What kind of Pietism is this?  Also, it wouldn’t take much to think that Dr. Piper has fallen into the old Liberal chestnut of “the Fatherhood of God over all men.”

Secondly, Bret responded to the following statement of Piper’s:

Jesus died for sinners to forgive sins through faith. He died to reconcile sinners to God. That’s all of us — all who receive Jesus as the stunning treasure he is. Stunning because “You were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every people” (Revelation 5:9). Every people. At the cost of being slain.

Jesus died and rose again to say no to racial reactions that result in dead boys. Not just to say no. But to empower no. And the power is not in shedding others’ blood but his own. The power is in humbling every race to be more suspicious of our own racial instincts than we are of others’ racial intentions.

Being a Christian means being crucified with Christ. My old arrogant self. My old ethnocentric self. My old fearful, suspicious, unloving self. That self died with Jesus. Jesus said, “Take up your cross daily.” That means daily reckoning my old self dead.

Bret McAtee responds:

Certainly … but what does this self-defense of Zimmerman (if the reports are accurate) have to do with this?  Jesus nowhere forbids self-defense. In point of fact, an unwillingness to defend oneself against assault would be to violate the 6th commandment of God.  The self that died with Jesus is not convicted by Jesus for defending oneself against assault and feared murder.

Piper ends the article with the following maudlin suggestion:

O what a difference it would have made if George Zimmerman had thought: “I have a gun. For Christ’s sake — for the sake of love — I better not follow this young man. I might wind up using it. Law enforcement is on the way. I have done my duty. Lord, I pray that this man will be treated with respect, and that justice will be done, and that your name will be great in this place.”

Evidently that was not his prayer. Now we face the consequences. What are you praying?

Well, I have a different version of that prayer.

O what a difference it would have made if Trayvon Martin had thought: “I’m a 6’3″ seventeen year old in peak physical condition. For Christ’s sake — for the sake of love — I better not assault this guy that I think was following me. I might wind up beating him up so badly that he feels compelled to shoot me to save his life. He’s lost my trail. I can just walk away. Lord, I pray that this man’s neighborhood will not be burglarized by other young black males or anyone else, and that his neighborhood will be in peace, and that your name will be great in this place.”

Evidently that was not his prayer. Now we face the consequences. What are you praying?

But, of course, that prayer would not serve the god of multiculturalism, and thus Piper has to promote the other one for his PDP.  John Piper’s article is sinful.  It breaks the ninth commandment in bearing false witness against Zimmerman, influencing others to nod their heads over how righteous Piper sounds and say something supportively pious in response.  John Piper focuses on the shooting of Trayvon Martin while ignoring multiple attacks and even, unlike the Martin/Zimmerman shooting, proven murders of whites by blacks which have taken place since Trayvon died.  Where are Piper’s calls for justice for this girl, this boy, Ashleigh Jacobs, Frank Motta, John Sanderson, or Mr. and Mrs. Strait?  The answer is simple: these attacks and murders, even when they involve a thirteen-year-old boy being set on fire for being white, are not useful as PDPs, and so John Piper cannot be bothered to write an article about them.  We should expect better from our pastors than what amounts to the unchristian spectacle of moral masturbation in the form of PDPs.

Piper is an Alienist with a warped view of reality.  He opened his mouth before the facts were in because of his extreme eagerness to demonstrate his anti-racist bonafides.  A realist who accepts the diversity of mankind as it is would not have made this mistake and harmed the reputation of the Church among millions of ordinary white people who sympathize with Zimmerman and his desire to rid his neighborhood of threatening black thugs.  Even though Zimmerman is Hispanic, as white Kinists we support his right and the right of his neighborhood to preserve their rights of free association, which includes the right to exclude trespassers on the privately owned roads of a gated subdivision.  Zimmerman may well have saved the life of one of his neighbors that night when he confronted the self-described “NO LIMIT NIGGA.”