[View the story "'White Hispanic': Does Zimmerman's race matter?" on Storify ]'White Hispanic': Does Zimmerman's race matter? Debate about identity and race emerges during George Zimmerman trial. Storified by AJAMStream · Fri, Jul 12 2013 10:40:12
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(Photo by Joe Burbank via Getty Images)
As the trial of George Zimmerman comes to a close, commentators and Twitter users questioned his Latino background and said Trayvon Martin's death wasn't racially charged.
Several conservative websites argued the mainstream media's description of George Zimmerman as a "white Hispanic" was just another attempt to depict the high-profile trial as racially motivated.
On Wednesday, CNN once again referred to Hispanic defendant George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic who is on trial for last year’s shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a black teen, in Sanford city.” The term “white Hispanic” was coined by the media after outlets wrongly labeled Zimmerman white; Zimmerman’s father is white, and his mother is Hispanic. On March 8, 2012, the Associated Press wrote, “The neighborhood watch leader is white.” When it came out that he was not, media outlets including CNN began labeling Zimmerman a “white Hispanic” in order to maintain the false narrative that the killing was race-based.breitbart.com
Now, up until this case, Hispanics were always lumped in with African-Americans and other people of color as a minority. But since this case happened, and since there is an African-American young man that has been killed by an Hispanic, "We can't have that." The Hispanic has to be white because the media wants to make this a racial event in America that, in their view, is a microcosm of what this country's really all about, and that is that black are killed just for being black. Even to this day. That's the only reason that they're in jail, 'cause they're black, and the only reason they're killed is because they're black, and they're killed by white people.rushlimbaugh.com
Many on Twitter agreed, including one radio talk show host with more than 100,000 followers.
Reporters who use the term "white Hispanic" are demonstrating their intense desire that the Zimmerman story be a racial story. Really seamy.Neal Boortz
I know the media is playing the white man kills black teen.. But Zimmerman looks Latino to me..Myles Parma
However, other Twitter users argued that racism goes beyond black or white:
FYI, it doesn't matter that #Zimmerman is "Hispanic" .. I know plenty of Hispanics that are STILL racist despite being a minority.jeηηa
.@latinorebels Another example of how convoluted the Old Narrative lines really are. The World Has Moved On...Mark Rodriguez
@niclott Ignorance. Just because he's Hispanic doesn't mean Zimmerman wasn't racist. There IS racial tension between blacks and Hispanics.Devanice SweetiePie
In a recent
interview with Fox News Latino, Zimmerman's brother explained that his family deliberately tried to play down his Latino roots:
“Our family very deliberately left the injection of another racial element off the table,” said Robert Zimmerman Jr., explaining the family decision was made by a concerted push by the brothers' Peruvian mother. “Any color or race is capable of racism so claiming to be 'not white' and therefore 'not culpable' is a moot point.”latino.foxnews.com
What do you think? Does Zimmerman's ethnicity matter in this trial?
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