Verdict Nears in Trayvon Martin Case—and the Right Fixates on Race Riots

Conservatives are fretting about angry black mobs and Florida law enforcement is preparing for the worst. Is any of this necessary?

As George Zimmerman's much-watched trial winds down, speculation has whipped up in the conservative media and elsewhere about how people—that is, black people—will react if the killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is acquitted. The implication is that if Zimmerman goes free, this racial powder keg of a case could explode into riots.

Ever since Zimmerman shot the unarmed teenager last year after a scuffle in a gated community in Sanford, Florida, the case has been racially fraught. Supporters of the Martin family portrayed Travyon's death as a clear incident of racial profiling and questioned the actions of the Sanford Police Department, which was criticized for initially dismissing the incident as a self-defense case and declining to arrest Zimmerman until more than a month after the shooting. Many on the right, by contrast, have cast Zimmerman as a poster child for Second Amendment rights and a victim of the liberal media.

As the prosecution and defense have argued over who started the fight, who is it that can be heard screaming for help on the 911 call, and whether Zimmerman's life was in danger before he pulled the trigger, commentators and pundits on cable news and in social media have talked of possible riots if Zimmerman is not convicted.

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