Word: goetz
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Once this assumption is made that first and foremost Goetz is white, i.e. instinctively prone to wish death upon Blacks, and that the four youths are first and foremost Black, i.e. hell-bent on terrorizing whites, then the case falls neatly into place. If the white gets off, white fear is justified and the stereotype of the Black as an innate criminal is vindicated...
...this is a theoretical mind-play which by all accounts from the jurors--Black and white--does not begin to explain what went on in their heads. The excessive concentration on race serves only to divert attention from the true danger of the Goetz decision, its approval of vigilantism, not racism...
...many observers of the recent Goetz verdict, these were the only salient facts...
...letting Goetz go free, critics of the verdict say the jury in effect provided whites with a license to shoot Black people. They provide no qualifications. The case purely and simply was about how Blacks and whites relate to each other, they say. Goetz becomes the white version of everyman, and his victims play the corresponding Black roles...
When people make the Goetz case a referendum on race, they are forced into defending vigilantism for all in order to oppose racism. Opposition to the Goetz verdict is reminiscent of the challenge presented to the death penalty which was struck down in a recent Supreme Court decision. The NAACP challenged the death penalty on the grounds that Blacks were more likely to be sentenced to execution than whites. The challenge stood for the principle of equality with respect to race, but in this case that meant non-discriminatory use of the death penalty...