What Makes a Hero? Not the Cowardice of Richard Cohen and His Defense of Racial Profiling

Richard Cohen, The Washington Post's habitually racially insensitive bigoted defender of racial profiling and group punishment for black people has offered up his obligatory take on the George Zimmerman case and the finding that he was "not guilty" of killing Trayvon Martin.

Wonkette has a running feature which chronicles Cohen's parade of "rational" racism and negrophobia. They consistently eviscerate his foolishness with deft skill.

There remains one part of Cohen's defense of George Zimmerman, and his complaint that those of us who stand in sympathy and alliance with Trayvon Martin (the real victim here) are troublemakers who annoy and make tired good privileged white men like him, which demands a bit more comment.

Yesterday, Richard Cohen wrote:

There’s no doubt in my mind that Zimmerman profiled Martin and, braced by a gun, set off in quest of heroism. The result was a quintessentially American tragedy — the death of a young man understandably suspected because he was black and tragically dead for the same reason.

The White Right considers Zimmerman a hero as a function of their racism, worship of guns, and deep desire to play Charles Bronson as they protect the good folks of "real America" from the black and brown hordes that have overrun it. Moreover, we cannot overlook how the Authoritarian-Ayn Rand bent of contemporary conservatism is that of bullies and xenophobes.

In all, George Zimmerman, who achieved full and honorary Whiteness by killing a black kid named Trayvon Martin, is a hero because his murderous deeds are a projection of the Tea Party GOP's racial hostility and desire to control through intimidation, force, and violence any individual or group which they identify as some type of Other or "undesirable." 

However, a local definition of heroism is not necessarily one that ought to be respected or accepted without skepticism or critical inquiry.

Noted social psychologist Philip Zimbardo has taken on the puzzle of social altruism and its relationship to the factors which make some people "evil" and others "heroic." His findings can be read here or watched online.

Zimbardo offers the following definition of a heroic act:

"Heroism is about a concern for other people in need, a concern for defending a moral cause, knowing that there is personal cost or risk, and you do it without expectation of reward." 

George Zimmerman meets few if any of those criteria. Zimmerman wanted glory and recognition as the neighborhood hero. Zimmerman did not place himself at risk of any real harm--he was armed; his victim carried candy and a bottle of iced tea. He also chose to racially profile a young black man knowing that the full power of State authority and the police would likely support whatever actions, however violent or unnecessary, Zimmerman decided to take that evening.

Ultimately, George Zimmerman's "heroism" exists in a system of relationships governed by a Newtonian model for the physics of racial attitudes, values, and politics: the more the murderer Zimmerman is vilified by black and brown folks and other reasonable parties, the more his defenders on the Right will embrace him. 

George Zimmerman is a coward. He is no hero. Curtis Sliwa, one of the founders of the Guardian Angels described Zimmerman perfectly when he suggested that: 

George Zimmerman is Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. He’s a nut. He’s a complete nut job who thinks he’s on a ‘mission,’ and this young black man ended up on his radar screen, and then dead.

“Because I deal with the wannabes who want to join the Guardian Angels, I see right away what this guy Zimmerman is: a self-appointed guardian. It’s him determining who is and is not a threat. Forget laws, forget standards, forget the police. Goetz had already been victimized, thrown thru a plate-glass window (in an attemped day-time robbery on Canal Street in 1981). When the four guys began to surround him on the train, to do that dance that many of us were used to back then, when the predators would sniff you out and maybe they’d rob you but they would empower themselves and you’d be completely emasculated and realize there’s nothing you can do if these guy pounce––but this time he got the jump.” 

Those trying to suggest Martin was likewise some sort of thug who brought on his own death because he smoked marijuana or bragged with friends about fighting, “they should impale themselves," said Sliwa. "Here’s a kid, goes out at half-time to get Skittles and iced tea, puts his hoodie on because it’s starting to rain, doesn’t say anything to anybody, isn’t eye-fornicating anybody, just minding his own business. He doesn’t have a M.O. He doesn’t do home invasions. What the hell are you following this kid for? Goddamn right he fights back. The same law that says you can stand and defend yourself in Florida—Martin is defending himself against a guy approaching him with a gun and confronting him.”

Sounds about right to me. One would hope that the Tea Party GOP and the Gun Right would find a better class of hero than George Zimmerman. We judge people by the company they keep.

Perhaps George Zimmerman, he who murdered Trayvon Martin, is in fact the perfect poster child for conservatism in the Age of Obama?