Last week, South Park took on one of the most divisive issues in America today – the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case.
And according to Jack Cashill, who authored "If I Had a Son: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman," the cartoon's makers got the case completely wrong.
"South Park had it absolutely wrong and it's really a shame because they are one of the few sources of common sense on the mainstream media," Cashill declared to WND.
Last week's episode, titled "World War Zimmerman," was a zany combination of a parody of the summer blockbuster "World War Z" with the George Zimmerman case.
In the episode, George Zimmerman shoots a black child that turns out to be a white child. When it is determined that the victim is actually white, Zimmerman is then convicted and executed for this action.
Cashill believes this description contradicts the actual reality in America today.
"They still work under the delusion that if you kill somebody of another race or a black person, you can get away with it, but if you kill somebody who is white, there's hell to pay," he said. "If George Zimmerman had shot a white guy under the exactly same circumstances, no one would have called him to trial, we would have known all about his record, Zimmerman would've been known as the Hispanic Neighborhood Watch coordinator, and not only that, we would've never heard of George Zimmerman or the guy he shot."
The episode also mocked Florida's "Stand Your Ground" laws as faulty legislation and Cashill feels this was handled worse than the shooting.
"Their treatment of 'Stand Your Ground' laws was even more flippant and sillier than their treatment of the Trayvon Martin shooting. The 'Stand Your Ground' laws passed the Florida State Senate 39-0 and it had overwhelming support from the black community, because it helps minorities more than it helps any other group. The Zimmerman case had nothing to do with 'Stand Your Ground' regardless, it was a case of self-defense," Cashill stated.
"South Park," according to Cashill, has a reputation for taking politically incorrect stances, those positions that run contrary to the predominately liberal views typical in television.
The show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have been labeled in the past as libertarians and the show has been noted for its unorthodox political views.
Cashill believes there are a couple reasons that the creators of South Park decided to follow the politically correct view of the controversy, instead of upholding their "contrarian" reputation.
"Two reasons: A. They might've not known enough about the case and B. This is an area that frightens them. If they're going to take this on, they have to be careful, more careful than if they were taking on Muslims or Barbara Streisand or Mormons. If they're going to make fun of Mormons, try making fun of an angry mob of thousands of black people!" Cashill reasoned. "That's what bothered me about the episode is that South Park usually takes the contrarian point of view, but here they did not – they took the tried and true."
He also remarked that maybe the huge success of Parker and Stone's Broadway Musical, "The Book of Mormon," which pokes fun at Mormonism, might have motivated the show's take on the Trayvon Martin case.
"It was less sophisticated and contrarian than I would've expected from South Park, but I guess they have found it more profitable to make fun of Mormons than to discuss the real causes of crime and dysfunction in our society," Cashill said.
In "If I Had A Son", Cashill tells the inside story of how, as the result of a tragic encounter with troubled 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the media turned Zimmerman into a white racist vigilante, "the most hated man in America."
"If I Had A Son" tells how for the first time in the history of American jurisprudence, a state government, the U.S. Department of Justice, the White House, the major media, the entertainment industry and the vestiges of the civil rights movement conspired to put an innocent man in prison for the rest of his life.
All that stood between Zimmerman and lifetime internment were two folksy local lawyers, their aides, and some very dedicated citizen journalists, most notably an unpaid handful of truth seekers at the blogging collective known as the Conservative Treehouse.
"If I Had A Son" tells the story, too, of the six stalwart female jurors who ignored the enormous pressure mounting around them and preserved America's judicial system.
In the wake of the verdict that acquitted Zimmerman of charges from Martin's shooting, skeptics in the Martin camp claimed that the state of Florida did not play to win. In the course of his research, Cashill came across some startling evidence which suggests that those skeptics may indeed be right.
"If I Had A Son" is the one and only comprehensive look at the most politically significant trial in decades.
See Cashill's comments on his investigation of the Martin case:
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