The Trayvon conversation that ended my 8 year friendship.

His facts are all wrong.. Also, Z had a Kel-tec not a glock. Even if it were a glock, they are no more deadly than any other pistol. The fact that he calls it a glock shows right there he did not even read the police report or other said evidence. Type of gun used is really besides the point. Either way this ex-friend of yours is lost.

Gs

Originally posted by FlySolo
reply to post by EllaMarina

 

I wouldn't feel sincere about an apology. I'm still pissed. Besides, I'm not exactly sure I want to be friends anyway after seeing how quickly he lashed out. I think the point of this thread is to show a real-life example of how we are being divided anyway. Not to make amends.

I didn't read your argument because i don't want my own feeling to riled up anymore as I am staying out of sides. Still I would like to point out, I think you said he is black and you are white. I think if something bad happened to someone who had my own background things I had to deal with all my life ( i will use my red hair color) some people hate people with red hair, in EU they commonly use derogatory terms for us.

You see where I am going? The pain of your life as a redhead comes into play when a redhead is killed coming home from the store with some candy, and it may have been by someone who suspects redheads are all floozies. So there is a filter for that person you cannot even begin to understand a filter of years of pain and dealing with something only those like you can see.

There is then a need for the friend (especially after taking it public for others to see) to comprehend where that is coming from, a heart willing to try and see the picture as best they can from my redhead point of view.

Maybe there is something of your own unique personal experience to insert in the "redhead" here and see how you may want the backing of your friend.

Originally posted by GoldenVoyager
Those who are educated seem to agree and understand that Zimmerman was innocent. Those who are less educated and more apt to be persuaded by media lies and listen to a completely different story and then hold onto an imaginary belief that some innocent kid was murdered, which in fact is quite the contrary or so the evidence points out. Looking into facts and listening to the evidence takes time and effort. Not everyone is able to be open minded to this situation and see the truth for what it is.

A completely fallacious assumption. We can simply look at the OJ was innocent finding and what did "those who are educated" say then??

There can be no meaningful debate about race becuse honest thinking is a scarce commodity.

His comment on the rape topic was very provocative and you fell for it sorry to say. While a harsh, and obviously irrelevant, accusation to make, your response was obviously the emotional one rather that the logical one.

Be that as it may, you are 100% correct in this being a classical example of real world consequences to the manipulation we are all subject to whether we see that there are strings being pulled or are on the ends of them; you are one of the former while your ex-friend is of the latter, though you did get pulled a bit here...

reply to post by FlySolo


Mate ... Facebook had the most 'block user' happening over the last few days than ever before. Life long friends and family members have combusted over this event.
Now I understand you wanted to debate the subject with your friend but what happened was you valued your own critique and judgements over honouring your friend and his feelings.
Below are the revealing sentences especially where he says... "when this kids reality is something I have when I lived" and "because obviously you are clearly not understanding the gravity of anything you are saying to me". Here he is stating that he has imagined himself or remembered himself in a common situation to TM's position. It means he has great empathy for what happened to TM and it could have been him or one of his friends/relatives that he cares about.
I think if you apologise you can save your friendship... but you need to honour something within him that that has triggered a fundamental fear and so his empathy for TM is also biological, its part of him, he's lived it. You need to listen, not talk more, or give your opinion, but just listen to him and give him the opportunity to see you genuinely care for him. You see TM is an abstract entity for you but not for your friend... TM is so much more than just TM to him.

You tell me to open MY EYES when this kids reality is something I have when I lived and you're revolted??? You know I was wrong telling you to uncork your head from your ass. Please re-insert back into your ass because obviously you are clearly not understanding the gravity of anything you are saying to me.

reply to post by LexiconV


Very valid point. I will take it into a very empathetic consideration.

First of all sorry for loosing your friend, sometimes it takes longer than you think to "really" know somebody. My herd of friends has been culled over the years, after finding out what truly makes that person.

I have heated debates with current friends on topics of religion, politics, and any other heated subject you can think of. We are still great friends. One buddy of mine is quite religious, we debate about the subject on-and-off but there is mutual respect from both parties. It appears your friend had no respect for you in that debate.

Your friend's opinion is not based in logic or reason, it's based in emotional immaturity. He doesn't even understand what a debate is. He thinks you disagreeing with him is grounds for attack. That's not a rational, logical person. That's a hot emotional mess of ridiculousness.

I find it hilarious he brings up "911 telling him not to follow martin" if someone uses that argument, it's an INSTANT sign that they are intellectually unarmed. They don't realize 911 operators have zero authority over anyone, nor are they trained to give "tactical" advice to someone.

He also says something along the lines of the case boiling down to "unarmed kid shot by evil guy" or whatever. Yet another sign of stupidity.

Why? Because ANY situation can be "boiled down" in that manner to give an appearance of ANYTHING you like. The details, facts, and circumstances are what's important, not how it "looks"

Pro Martin:

Poor unarmed black kid killed by evil white maniac

Pro Zimmerman:

Man putting his life on the line to protect his community was attacked and defended himself.

NEITHER of those tells the whole story. Only an idiot would boil this whole situation down into a single line "talking point" and then make a judgement based on that single sentence.

This type of creative wordplay can be done with anything, and only idiots would base their opinions on it. Sadly I think your friend is one of those idiots.

Lets use some more creative wordplay:

Israel situation:

Pro-Israel- Persecuted race returns to their ancestral homeland and defends itself against a region seeking its destruction

Anti-Israel- World dominating jews invade arab territory, steal a swath of land, persecute the natives, and provoke violence encounters with its neighbors.

Both are true, and both are false.

Your friend is obviously lying to himself, he isn't passionate about this case, he is emotionally unstable over this case. There is a huge difference. If he was truly passionate about this case, he would put time and effort into making logical arguments and providing solutions, not spewing hate and regurgitated media phrases and slogans.

I've had a few debates in person about this zimmerman case, and even though we disagreed, it was a civil debate where we tried to think critically and logically. Neither of our minds were changed overall, but we both agreed we were thinking about a few things in new ways.

I think a large part of the population has lost their ability for critical thinking and logical thought. They operate purely on fear, hatred, and the "cloud mind" of the media. Being an independent thinker doesn't mean your opinions mesh with a certain "profile" it means you are open to all ideas and if you feel strongly about something are willing to defend it to anybody in a logical manner. Flipping out because someone disagrees with you is the same as a little kid freaking out when he realizes his daddy isn't superman. Closed minded people hate having their views tested, open minded people revel in it.

reply to post by FlySolo


Firstly I am sorry that you have lost a friend. However your friendship should have been greater than conflicting OPs. Maybe the friendship had run its course

However what is shows is that race runs very deep and is a psychological manifestation of our shadow self.

Someone should have pointed out that this was going to be a tough discussion which could get heated but would calm towards the end and friendship would prevail but then hindsight is a wonderful thing…

reply to post by FlySolo


My advice is to apologize to your friend and try to patch things up. Even if you feel you are not in the wrong.

I've got a friend I've had for over 30 years. We've had quite a few disagreements over race issues over the years, but at the end of the day, we're still friends. It's because we really know each other, and we can discuss things in a logical way. Sometimes the discussion may get a little heated, but we always listen to what each other has to say. I know I've learned some things from him, and I believe he has learned some things from me. Maybe it has something to do with us both being strong chess players, or maybe it's just because of the respect that has grown between us over the years. If either of us need anything, the other is just a phone call away.

Maybe a year from now you will both be able to look back on this and see that there was just way too much emotion coming out over something that doesn't really affect your lives that much, if at all. Think about it, some hispanic guy shoots a black kid in Florida, why should you have to lose a friend over that? It's not like you or your friend knew either one of them personally.

This media crapstorm is not worth losing a friend over.

I agree that you should look for common ground and get back your friendship and learn from it.
Looking very impartially from the UK, the issue is very emotionally charged and not clear cut, judging by the views. If I get into a over heated debate with my religious friends, i always step back- as i have usually hit one of their core values.

reply to post by FlySolo


Hes right, youre wrong

Dear OP:

BE prepared to do battle with these idiots. Eric Holder will make sure they are armed to to the teeth.

Since they have no facts and no class, the only thing left to them is to gain weapons from the US Government. They will be well connected with their Obamaphones and well-armed with their Fast and Furious assault weapons. Any wounds they suffer in the battle will be payed for by the Affordable Care Act, subsidized by our tax dollars.

Our only hope is they kill themselves first with the methamphetamine, coc aine, or heroin, the government is dealing on the same streets.

Sounds like he wasn't worth two #s of a friend anyway. If you really wanted to keep his friendship, you would have kept your mouth shut the minute you realized how he felt about the topic. But you obviously didn't, so you have no reason to be upset about losing him as a friend.

Second, you're point fingers at the Trayvon case when you yourself are arguing who's to blame. You should realize cases like this will only cause problems when brought up in conversation, so you only have yourself to blame for what happened - not the Trayvon case that is "tearing us apart", and if you didn't realize it yet, you should now.

Originally posted by ImaFungi
reply to post by FlySolo

 

Hes right, youre wrong

edit on 17-7-2013 by ImaFungi because: (no reason given)

Youre wrong, hes right

reply to post by Lionhearte

Trayvon case that is "tearing us apart"

Generally speaking. Not referring to my friend.

If you really wanted to keep his friendship, you would have kept your mouth shut the minute you realized how he felt about the topic.

That works both ways.

reply to post by FlySolo


Friends don't have to agree on everything.

You can respect another persons opinion and ask to talk about something else.

If they refuse your request to discuss a topic where there is going to be argumentativeness, angst, and deep personal feelings then they probably aren't worth having as a friend.

Originally posted by FlySolo
reply to post by EllaMarina

 

I wouldn't feel sincere about an apology. I'm still pissed. Besides, I'm not exactly sure I want to be friends anyway after seeing how quickly he lashed out. I think the point of this thread is to show a real-life example of how we are being divided anyway. Not to make amends.

I understand. Sometimes you just know it wouldn't be worth it.

I am the Chairman of the reunion committee for my High School Class. I was using Facebook as my main source of contact for the reunion planning. I ended up canceling the entire reunion and deleted my Facebook page after things went astray in a major way. I went to school in Frayser TN. Anyone that knows about Frayser at all knows it is very famous for it's gangster rappers that emerge and gang issues and drug and race issues. It is a very rough place. There were 15 or so white people in a class of 150. I only hang out with a small few black people in school. That's how bad the gang and race issues were. In planning the reunion I did not have any of the black people on my friend list and only had a few people interested in going so I set up a new page just for my school reunion classes of 1980 - 1999. By the end of the first week of the new page I had over 500 people signed up for the page and close to 200 signed up for the reunion. Most of the people signed up were white and we were planning on something semi-formal at our old High School building. Times being hard and most from Frayser lower class incomes we were going to try and make it relatively inexpensive. I added a black woman from my class as an admin and committee member. Immediately she insisted that we cancel the plans at the school and hold it at a black community center in a rough part of Frayser and make it formal and catered. We had a committee meeting a day later and we voted against that idea. She hijacked my page and changed my password and locked me out of it and officially changed everything. I brought it to the attention of Facebook and I eventually got my page back and she was deleted and I tried to regain control but began being bombarded by very mean and threatening emails from several black people about this. It got so bad I cancelled the reunion, deleted my page for the reunion and all of the people that had been threatening me. Then white people I didn't even know started questioning why I deleted so many black people from my personal page and why I was so racist. I explained that they were not my friends ever and since the reunion was off I didn't want them on my page which I only have close friends and family on. I just deleted my entire Facebook page.
About 6 months or so later my wife pitched a fit for me to get a page again so I could help her with games and keep in touch with family better so I did.

Now, here is the reason I posted this long rant: As soon as the Zimmerman not guilty verdict came in these idiots looked me up and began messaging me saying crap like I bet you sure are happy now seeing that POS get off from murdering an innocent black child, and that I can most suredly sleep better knowing we are short one 'n-word', their words. I never had my page set to private because I had no personal info on it and really rarely posted and just helped my wife with xtra lives on games. Close friends from school that had always appeared like minded started going off when they saw me defend myself. I said pretty much the same things as the OP and a few people lost their dang minds.
This case has really brought out the worst in a whole lot of people. So much to the point that they surched out white people to harass about it.
I will add this, the threats came again and they were reported to FB and the police. However I am no neighborhood watchman but I do have a carry permit and I carry a 9mm with ballistic tipped hollow points. I pray I never have to fire it at another human being but things the way they are now I may have to in the near future. I live in a very small relatively safe town until recently. A few days ago a black man drove onto one of our streets and just opened fire into random homes with a gun. Police claim it is a gang initiation for them to kill random white people. They warn us about Wal Marts especially saying they are big time initiation spots.

interesting story. But OP didn't I read this on that "other forum" ? MAybe I'm wrong

Whats that whole arguing on the internet saying?

I'm sure it's doubly apt when concerning fakeblock.