Thursday, January 30, 2014

Three Sonorans Compares Justin Bieber's Crime Spree to Trayvon Martin's Killing

Posted By on Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 2:00 PM

For the longest time, I've looked at the things said by Three Sonorans scribe D.A. Morales with confusion and, often, amusement — after all, one can only read so many varieties of "white people are the worst" so many times before it gets old. I stopped keeping track of him some time after he decided to depart from the Interwebs for a while at the beginning of last year, in keeping with his apparent wishes.

Sure, he continues to rail against the "Weakly" (side-note: do people still think they're clever when they use that insult? It's older than I am, guys) when he gets the chance, and yeah, he still thinks white people are the devil (even Terry Goddard hates brown people, apparently), but I can see where he's coming from: a corner of the Internet where brown people can do no wrong, lest they disagree with him.

Still, even after tempering myself with all that he's previously written, the Chicano crusader of all-things-race-related made me slam my head against my desk when I read this lovely bit of false-equivalency:

Dude, seriously?

You're going to place a temper tantrum from a younger, shittier Usher on the same level as an instance where a kid was shot to death? Hell, I can't even think of anyone of consequence (sorry, Beliebers and Kelly Osbourne) who's defended Bieber since the Miley Cyrus lookalike was pulled over for drag racing and arrested for suspected DUI. If we're comparing epithets, while Martin was called a "thug" on numerous right-wing blogs (check the top Google results for "trayvon martin thug," if you'd like to check), Bieber was called a "piece of shit" by one of his more famous countrymen.

Justin Bieber is a dumb kid who made it big incredibly quickly and will soon be tried for his crimes (including vandalism of a neighbor's home and an assault that took place on his native Canadian soil). I'd be happy if I never heard his name again (or one of his songs, for that matter), but I'm glad that he hasn't killed anyone during his long descent from pop superstar to cultural footnote.

Trayvon Martin, on the other hand, was killed. Shot by George Zimmerman, who was later found not guilty of murder by way of self-defense, he died at 17 years old while walking down the street at night. His death (at the hand of a brown guy, it might be worth adding) and killer's trial took over media for months. Since being found innocent, Zimmerman has taken to hiding as he loses everything of value around him, including his marriage. People are still talking about the validity of Stand Your Ground laws.

As I asked Morales on his Facebook page, on what planet are these situations comparable? Sure, both happened in Florida, but there is no possible way any right-minded individual can consider these similar without a few logical leaps of faith. Assumedly, it's that Bieber is a white Canadian pop star who hasn't had threats of deportation thrown his way by those in power, while Zimmerman sells shitty paintings from his house and Martin lays buried a Florida cemetery.

I'm not following this train of thought, guys — plus, if social media had its way, Bieber would be packing up his Never Say Never movie posters and heading back to Canada without his green card.

Nothing against Three Sonorans, or Morales personally, but what benefit does this voice bring to the crusade for civil rights and racial equality when it tries to place the crimes of a spoiled white pop star on the same level as a black kid who was killed while buying Skittles? I mean, no one looks good when they're calling for the hanging of a dude who hasn't even been taken to trial yet, no matter the skin color of the accused.

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