No, Seriously, Zimmerman Said "Punks"

It's clear as a bell. Now, this is "cleaned up," and I suppose someone could say "That's just a nice word for altered," but that's what CNN did when it tried to push the meme that Zimmerman had said "coons."

He didn't. It's plainly "punks."

Punks. (Wav file provided by one of our audio expert commenters, Chris Reynolds.)

I got swindled by this. I have noted before that a new trick in the internet age is to take some hard-to-understand audio and then suggest -- I mean that in the hypnotist sense of "suggest" -- an interpretation of those unintelligible words. We saw that in 2008 with the Mickey Kantor video, in which it was alleged he called Pennsylvania Indiana voters "white n***ers."

But he said nothing like that.

It's pretty insidious. If you are fed the interpretation "worthless white ni**er," you do hear that. When it's suggested to you that's what he said, that's what it does sound like.

If you're expecting to hear it, you hear it.

But it's not what he said. What he actually says is something like "How would you like to be winning in Texas?"

And they've done this trick several times since. I forgot about the trick, though. Even though I actually always am pointing the trick out.

The thing is, if I try to hear "coons," I can hear coons. But the moment I switch my brain to hear "punks," I hear punks. Plain as day.

Now, CNN ginned this up. Not only did they insist he said "coons," they played the clip dozens of times in a single segment.

I point out the difference in rules when it comes to racially inflaming people -- CNN embargoes stories that might inflame whites against blacks (or Muslims), but here, they're happy arsonists tossing matches into a can of racial gasoline.

Seriously, watch how many times they play "f***in' coons" (supposedly) here. What is their intent? The guy actually says, "Let's play that like ten times."

And will they now acknowledge that it sounds more like "f***iin' punks"?

via @rdbrewer4 again.

posted by Ace at 03:16 PM

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