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Lowell Observatory Pushes To Name an Asteroid "Trayvon"
Flash Modin writes "The observatory where Pluto was discovered is pushing to name an asteroid after a black teenager killed in a controversial confrontation in Florida last year. William Lowell Putnam III says his family has identified with the cause of African American rights, and thus an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin is perfectly appropriate. Putnam is the sole trustee of the observatory, which was founded by Percival Lowell during his search for canals on Mars. Astronomers at the observatory discovered the asteroid in 2000, but it has not been formally named. Putnam has already asked the Minor Planet Center once to designate the asteroid 'Trayvon,' but they told him the designation was 'premature.' Now that there's been a verdict, the observatory is reapplying in hopes the naming body will see things different."
The doctoring only changes the context of the claim about his race, from "Can you give us a description? He's maybe 5'10, wearing white clothes and I think he looks black" or whatever to "He's looks black I'm going to kill him because of that" but the argument above is whether he knew the race of the guy before he confronted him.
Obviously he did which means attempts to try and absolve Zimmerman of pursuing the guy for racist reasons based on him not knowing the colour of Travyon are invalid.
I'm not from the US so I have no real stake in the whole incident but whilst Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder there's an awful lot of people trying to find him not guilty of more than that, like, you know, playing amateur cop stalking a guy which he obviously did and to me is a bit messed up in itself, but hey, maybe that's a normal thing in the US. The US still has major race problems and whether this was or wasn't a racist incident the drama and commentary by both professionals talking heads and amateur bloggers made it pretty clear that racism is still rife in the US. Responses to this topic alone by ACs and non-ACs alike make that pretty clear. It's pretty obvious the US still has issues in this regard that desperately need solving.