Punkonomics (@DearBalak)

There has been some discussion about the decision by the judge in the case against Zimmerman concerning why she will admit evidence about Zimmerman’s background but not about the victim Trayvon Martin (or at least apply different standards). Some have claimed this denies Zimmerman a fair trial.

I disagree because Trayvon’s character is already assassinated merely because he is a black young man. If racism was NOT central in US history, culture, economy, and media, then you would be  justified to claim that an exactly equal standard should be applied (even here one could argue that the defendant’s background is the only relevant one given that he claims to have shot a stranger). However in the real world justice can only be approximately served with correction (as Aristotle with his commutative and distributive justice in the Nichomachean Ethics). Zimmerman is perhaps not a rabid lyncher psychopath but he did what he did in a context in which innocent black men are gunned down by the hundreds every year (Report-on-the-extrajudicial-killing-of-120-black-people-fast) and many others are imprisoned for profit etc so he should have been extra careful before pulling the trigger.

Imagine if Zimmerman was black and Trayvon was a white girl?!?