Can You Believe It?

An attorney representing the racist Florida murderer was interviewed on television tonight.  Among the many scandalously ridiculous claims he made on behalf of his client was that the racist murderer's use of the term "coon" in reference to his victim may not be evidence of the murderer's racism.  After all, he said, there are many people in some areas of this country who proudly refer to themselves as "coonasses." 

As one of those people, let me say that, yes, in fact many of us in south Louisiana are indeed proud to call ourselves coonasses.  And my pride in being a coonass is perhaps exceeded only by my relief in not being a member of the legal profession, and so not having to be, however tenuously, somewhat associated with such an idiot.  For those who are completely unaware of Louisiana history, the origin and use of the term coonass carries absolutely no racial connotations whatsoever.  It has no resemblance at all to the epithet the racist Florida murderer issued in reference to the innocent young victim he chased down and killed in cold blood.  Moreover, it hardly makes sense that the murderer would have been using some praiseworthy, if rather obscure, term to characterize the victim he only seconds earlier had called an asshole.  This kind of nonsense makes Johnny Cochran's infamous "if the glove doesn't fit, you must aquit" defense of O.J. Simpson sound like the highest achievement in the annals of American jurisprudence.

Don't get me wrong, everyone deserves a defense.  And if this is the best the racist Florida murderer can do for one, then in my opinion he's getting exactly what he deserves.  But I recount the substance of the television interview to make a larger point, which is that no plausible or objective basis exists for anyone to believe anything other than that this was a racially motivated murderous incident, made all the worse by police complicity.  Yet there is quite a bit of divided opinion on the matter.

And no surprise, we find the conservative media mouthpieces working overtime to entertain their benighted audiences with the kind of right-wing claptrap and bullshit they just love to gulp down when it comes to gun-toting fantasies of justifiable self-defense, even in this case of  vigilante chase and kill performed against an unarmed, under-aged, and perfectly innocent citizen.  And so if you wonder why I am proud to be a liberal, as well as a coonass, it is because in this country most conservatives are ignorant, immoral, and racist asses.  That you can believe.