Conservatives’ tribalist, anti-Christian response to Trayvon Martin’s death

Right-wing pundits are having a field day now that George Zimmerman has been acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin.  Many are disgustingly celebrating the verdict, some submitting long-winded defenses of stand your ground laws or the presumption of innocence in the American justice system (looking forward to seeing those rigorous defenses of criminal defendants going forward), and still others are railing against the “racialization” of a (clearly racially charged) case by political officials.  What I find interesting is how many of these right-wing responses display a tribal over individual, and anti-Christian, understanding of the world that belies the self-image of modern conservatives.

Judging someone by the color of their skin and not the content of their character

Racist stop-and-frisk laws have somehow been thrown back into the national conversation after the Zimmerman verdict.  Richard Cohen had an appalling piece this week where he admits that New York’s program “amounts to racial profiling writ large,” but argues that “if young black males are your shooters, then it ought to be young black males whom the police stop and frisk.”  The National Review’s Rich Lowry also points to the racist program in a Trayvon Martin column this week, arguing that thanks to the stop and frisk “New York City once had 2,200 murders a year and now has 400,” with “many of the thousands of lives saved… those of black men.”  Lowry’s colleague Heather MacDonald says racial profiling of individuals based on group traits is “not only inevitable, it is also rational, based on the evidence.”

The implication of this tribalist thinking is pretty clear – judge a man by the color of this skin and not by his character.  Even though many conservatives are adamant that Zimmerman’s initial stalking of Martin had little to do with race, if it did, it was completely justified because there had been a handful of break-ins by black males at the complex.  Nevermind that Travyon was living at the apartment community with his dad, nevermind that he was just walking home from the store.  Since he was the same race as a few people who had broken into nearby apartments, any armed individual in the complex was justified in following and confronting him.  This logic is the exact opposite of the self-diagnosed “colorblindness” conservatives are said to be afflicted with, revealing the deep tribalist/anti-individual currents in the modern Right.

What you believe and your alleged behavior determine your life’s worth

The other revealing aspect of the Trayvon Martin case is how conservatives use a person’s alleged personal values to lessen the value of their life.  Breitbart editor-at-large and general right-wing nut Ben Shapiro writes in his 2013 screed Bullies that Trayvon Martin “wore a grille in his mouth. He was tattooed. He dressed like a punk.  His Twitter feed was filled with misogynistic, drug-loving garbage.”  Shapiro continues by quoting a number of unflattering tweets before claiming “none of this is to say that Martin should have been shot and killed.”  Other conservative pundits have pointed to Martin’s usage of marijuana and cellphone picture of a gun (oh the fucking irony) to disparage his character.

The gap between conservative rhetoric here and the Right’s alleged Christian roots couldn’t be clearer.  Under Christianity, all men are equal before god – “there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  To imply that Martin’s character flaws – or the alleged cultural flaws many conservatives point to in the black community – devalue the boy’s life is about as anti-Christian as you can get.

This strain of thinking goes beyond the Trayvon Martin case

These tendencies can also be seen in calls for surveillance of U.S. Muslims and the bombing and killing of foreign Muslims.  Anti-Muslim crusader and U.S. Representative Peter King argues “we can’t be bound by political correctness [i.e. respect for individual liberty]. I think we need more police and more surveillance in the [Muslim] communities where the threat is coming from.”  Alleged “libertarian” Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit exemplifies similar thinking applied to foreign Muslim targets, pointing to the “barbaric behavior” emanating from the Middle East to justify attacks on Iraqis and Iranians.

Whether it’s Trayvon Martin, immigrants in Arizona or drone-victims in Yemen, these racial profiling and differential value of life arguments undercut conservative claims that they represent individualism, liberty and Christian values fighting against some godless collectivist Left.  The fact is that many on the Right disregard individual rights and key tenants of Christianity in favor of a crass tribal mentality when it comes to the issue of race.