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No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'. There's really no need to inject 'prosecuted white guy' into the conversation.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
You're quite right that race shouldn't have anything to do with it; I shouldn't have written it that way. But this is clearly wrong: >No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'. We pass laws for specific sympathetic victims all the time. We often even name them after the victims. Megan's law, Amber alerts, etc. It isn't that they're white that matters, what matters is that they're sympathetic. At best, if we assume society is fairly racist, maybe we see them as more sympathetic because they're white. But let me admit that was a mistake and move past it, because it's going down the wrong path. The point is that most of the innocent accused in the existing justice system are poor, uneducated, largely unsympathetic urban youth who no one in power cares about. There is no powerful lobby to fix it for them. In this case we have a brilliant kid who everyone loved, who was subjected to the same injustice. This should never have happened -- not to him, not to the others. So we should rally behind this tragedy and while we have the support of public opinion, prevent it from happening again, to anyone.
jlgreco 14y ago
Rewritten? Perhaps not, but he said passed. There are numerous examples of laws that have 'little innocent white girls' as catalyzing moments, to the extent that they are often named after the victims, if only in popular media. Just from the top of my head and a few seconds on google: numerous proposed "Caylee's Laws", Chelsea's Law, Marsy's Law, Jessica's Law, Megan's Law... There is a metric bucketload of laws named after people here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws I don't really feel like filtering that by "young female victim", it would be too depressing.
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AnthonyMouse 14y ago

You're quite right that race shouldn't have anything to do with it; I shouldn't have written it that way. But this is clearly wrong: >No laws are being rewritten posthumously for 'sympathetic white girl'. We pass laws for specific sympathetic victims all the time. We often even name them after the victims. Megan's law, Amber alerts, etc. It isn't that they're white that matters, what matters is that they're sympathetic. At best, if we assume society is fairly racist, maybe we see them as more sympathetic because they're white. But let me admit that was a mistake and move past it, because it's going down the wrong path. The point is that most of the innocent accused in the existing justice system are poor, uneducated, largely unsympathetic urban youth who no one in power cares about. There is no powerful lobby to fix it for them. In this case we have a brilliant kid who everyone loved, who was subjected to the same injustice. This should never have happened -- not to him, not to the others. So we should rally behind this tragedy and while we have the support of public opinion, prevent it from happening again, to anyone.

jlgreco 14y ago

Rewritten? Perhaps not, but he said passed. There are numerous examples of laws that have 'little innocent white girls' as catalyzing moments, to the extent that they are often named after the victims, if only in popular media. Just from the top of my head and a few seconds on google: numerous proposed "Caylee's Laws", Chelsea's Law, Marsy's Law, Jessica's Law, Megan's Law... There is a metric bucketload of laws named after people here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws I don't really feel like filtering that by "young female victim", it would be too depressing.

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