I just want to make an important point here that I feel a lot of people are missing:
There are many who are upset at people digging into the details of Trayvon's past, why he was on suspension, did he attack a bus driver, history of drug use and theft/burglary as increasingly appears to be the case.
And then of course they're also upset that things like tattoos, gold grill in the mouth, posing for pics in a certain way, typing in a certain way on Twitter/Facebook, are being called attention to as well.
These people feel that it's unfair and trying to drag a dead person's reputation through the mud, but I disagree and here's why:
From the outset of this, one of the primary things that has been in contention is whether Zimmerman had any basis to view Trayvon as suspicious. That continues to be debated hotly now.
I feel the details of his past behaviors and general lifestyle, as well as certainly things like his appearance are of great significance in that debate.
I think we all know that there is a certain way of carrying one's self that goes along with that lifestyle, I'm not sure how common the sort of "pimp walk" thing is anymore, but even in the absence of that sort of extreme, there's a certain sort of "gangsta walk", maybe a hint of skittishness, this is why we have phrases like "looks suspicious" in the first place. WE ALL KNOW THIS. Every single one of you knows what I'm talking about right now it's just a question of whether you're going to be intellectually honest enough to admit it.
I'm not saying it's an exact science, and certainly when you come to things like tattoos, hoodies, weed, etc of course there are loads of perfectly wonderful people who partake of all those things (not so sure whether there are very many nice people with gold teeth or bags of stolen jewelry though)
There are plenty of nice people who make mistakes and run afoul of the law once or twice, thanks to intoxicants or temper issues or whatever, but if you caught them most days they'd be really pleasant to be around.
I've never used drugs or any sort of intoxicants myself in my 32 years but all of my friends partake heavily of weed, and alcohol, and I don't view them as any lesser for it. To each his own.
But in the context of a larger body of evidence, coupled with other factors, I do think the weed (especially at that age, on school grounds) tends to just pile on with the other stuff. In and of itself, not so bad. Coupled with other things emerging? It starts to paint a picture.
But yea, I've watched enough "cops" or just people first hand to know that habitual criminals or delinquent kids absolutely have a certain way they carry themselves which projects this, it conveys a familiarity with "getting away with shit" and slickly worming in and out of situations quickly, rapidly doing something shady, then moving along, etc, looking around to check first etc, there is just a certain aura to it.
So I think when you have a man like Zimmerman whose blood is literally being called for by most of the country, primarily on the basis of believing he heartlessly chose to gun down Emmanuel Lewis as Webster
I think it's entirely fair for there to be some pushback of people saying "hey wait now, here's what this individual actually looked like at the time of the incident, here's how tall he was, here are some things he was doing at his school, and how he presented himself. Here are some reasons and factors which might go toward making you understand why he was initially striking Z as suspicious."
I don't deny that Z's "suspicion-o-meter" is probably too easy to set off, but based on what we're finding out I'm increasingly convinced that Trayvon would've set off just about anyone's.
EDIT: Oh and one quick note, to whoever it was earlier who targeted me as "having just made this account to play in this thread" let me just say... I've been on the net since 1994 and BBS's before that, I've visited this site for many years, on rare occasion, I'm in the process of building a desktop PC right now (just need the vid cards and hard drives), I have forum registration dates elsewhere dating back to the 90's, and was a heavy IRC user since back in '95 or '94. I don't appreciate being treated as an interloper just because you don't agree with me on this issue, presumably everyone was inspired to register here for some reason at some time, just because you've forgotten yours doesn't change that. This issue is interesting enough to make this forum's largest thread in history and it can't be understood to also be interesting enough to inspire a few new registrants?