Zimmerman case not just about race

Daniel Greenfield writes that the problem with people like George Zimmerman, people at the lower half of the middle class, is that they

didn't have enough money to leave the city and didn't have enough liberalism to accept the violence as their just due.

But the case isn't about race either. It's about a struggling middle class in a precarious economy trying to hang on to what it has. And it's about a culture of dropouts from the economy who celebrate thuggery and then pretend to be the victims. It's doubtful that anyone in Zimmerman's neighborhood who weathered multiple break-ins has much sympathy for the Martin family. And that's one reason that the prosecution hasn't found any useful witnesses.

And even in a country where the thug tops the entertainment heap, the vulnerable parts of the middle class have more sympathy for aspiring cops than for aspiring thugs.

What are cops and thugs? Cops are the protectors of the middle class and thugs prey on the middle class. Not just any part of the middle class, but the vulnerable parts, the men and women without enough money and mobility to get out when neighborhoods turn bad. And then it all comes down to territory and who can intimidate whom. Either the cops intimidate the thugs or the thugs intimidate the cops.

Everyone is the hero in their own story, but George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin were living out different stories. George Zimmerman was looking out for his neighbors while Trayvon Martin was looking to live the thug life. Martin's story ended with him realizing that sometimes attitude isn't enough and Zimmerman's story ended with him realizing that sometimes even when you try to be the hero, you're going to be drawn as a villain.

It's a story about homesteaders and savages, about a shaky middle class built on piles of debt trying to protect what's left of its way of life while across the street, there's the glamor of not working and scoring money any way you can.

That's the real story behind the headlines, the agitprop and the circus of a public trial. It's the reality that doesn't get talked about much because it's much less interesting than the straightforward story being fed into the presses. The one about an innocent young boy killed for no reason at all. It's a story about what happens when people are backed into a corner and then told to stay there. It's about a frightened middle class trying to survive. And it's about territory.