Ann Althouse has a conversation — or tries to, at least. But it’s rather difficult to do when you disagree on the basic facts of the case.
If the facts of the case are that Zimmerman attacked Martin, then the conversation we need to have is, in fact, “just because a black teenager wears a hoodie and behaves oddly is no reason to attack him.”
But if the facts of the case are that Martin attacked Zimmerman, then the conversation is “what can we do about young black men who attack others?”
A jury determined that the evidence supports the latter alternative, or at least, that that evidence in favor of the former alternative isn’t strong enough to send a man to prison. We can’t know, ultimately, what happened that night. What’s the value in a “national conversation” when it is impossible to establish the basic premises of the conversation?
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