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http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/frank-taaffe-george-zimmerman-racist-white-voice
George Zimmerma's Biggest Defender: A Racist With a Criminal Past
Frank Taaffe, Zimmerman's unofficial media emissary, is a convicted criminal who recently appeared on The White Voice, a virulently racist podcast.
Apil 2012, two days before George Zimmerman was arrested for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, he huddled with a fellow neighborhood watch volunteer, Frank Taaffe. According to Taaffe, who disclosed the meeting on Fox News, Zimmerman asked him to share "several talking points" with the media. Taaffe obliged. Indeed, as Zimmerman's legal drama unfolded over the next year and a half, Taaffe emerged as his most visible and outspoken defender. He gave hundreds of interviews to media outlets, ranging from the New York Times to Fox News to CNN, and made near-daily appearances on cable news shows during Zimmerman's trial.
Taaffe used this platform to cast Martin as a drug-addled hoodlum and Zimmerman as a community-minded do-gooder ("the best neighbor you would want to have") who had every reason to suspect the black teen was up to mischief. He also railed against Zimmerman's critics, whom he accused of staging a witch hunt. "It's really sad that he has already been convicted in the public media and has already been sentenced to the gas chamber," he lamented in an interview with NBC's Miami affiliate last year.
Taaffe was hardly the ideal person to be weighing in on a case suffused with racial angst—or commenting on criminal-justice matters, period. A Mother Jones investigation has found that the 56-year-old New York native has a lengthy criminal record that includes charges of domestic violence and burglary, and a history of airing virulently racist views. Just last Sunday, he appeared on The White Voice, a weekly podcast hosted by a man named Joe Adams, who has deep, long-standing ties to white-power groups and has authored a manual called Save The White People Handbook.(Sample quote: "A mutt makes a great pet and a mulatto makes a great slave.")
During a previous White Voice appearance, on July 27, Taaffe argued that whites and blacks have no business mingling. ("They don't want to be with us and we don't want to be with them.") Taaffe also opined that if Zimmerman had racially profiled Martin, he was justified in doing so because "young black males" had burglarized homes in their neighborhood. "What if I—a middle-aged white man—wore a hoodie and went through Trayvon Martin's neighborhood?" he asked defiantly. Adams replied that "no sane white person" would dare walk down their "local Marcus Garvey Boulevard.""I'd only be there for one or two things," Taaffe shot back. "And I'm sure the vice squad would want to be interested in that."
Later, Taaffe accused African Americans of committing "self-genocide" by failing to address the "ills and diseases that are festering" in the black community—especially the absence of black fathers, which "leaves young black males growing up without direction." And he bemoaned the fact that some white women choose to date black men, saying that they invariably end up becoming single mothers. "Guess who winds up paying the tab on that? You and me and the rest of America," Taaffe grumbled. "It's called entitlement, man. It's called food stamps. It's called welfare."
By the end of the show, Taaffe was so worked up that he was calling for a revolution. "This trial is waking up white America, man," he said. "I'm fed up with the bullshyt and the glad-handing to this one group of people who now control what we do and say. Come on, man, wake up America!"
Taaffe's private Twitter feed (@pinsones) also reeks of racial animus. In one tweet, he bashed Michael Skolnik, who directs hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' political operations, saying "how much nikka cock do u suck an one day or maybe u like it pounded up ur hebe ass." In another he wrote, "the only time a black life is validated is when a white person kills them."
The White Voice is selling Frank Taaffe T-shirts. Frank Taaffe/FacebookAsked about his history of racially charged remarks, Taaffe made no apologies. "There is a thing called First Amendment speech," he said. "I have freedom to opine on current social issues, and I'm not going to be restricted." He reeled off statistics about black crime and out-of-wedlock births. "I'm not going on some Tom Metzger-David Duke tangent," he added. "I'm merely echoing the suppressed voices in this country that have been beleaguered by affirmative action and crimes committed by that particular group of people."
These kinds of extreme racial views infused Taaffe's media commentary. He told the New York Times that his gated community had been burglarized by "Trayvon-like dudes with their pants down" and taunted his black fellow talk show guests with race-tinged jibes. On a recent episode of HLN's Dr. Drew on Call, the topic turned to racial profiling. Taaffe shouted down a fellow panelist and launched into a bizarre diatribe: "You know, Whitey, us…we've had a little bit of slavery, too," he said. "Back in 1964 or 1965, then-President Johnson signed an executive order; it was called affirmative action. And you want to talk about slavery?" Taaffe's fellow guests seemed stunned that he'd been given a national platform to broadcast these ideas. "It's like every word that comes out of his mouth is a turd falling in my drink," said African American radio personality Brian Copeland. "I don't understand why he's allowed to go on like he does."CNN and its sister network, HLN, have repeatedly invited Taaffe to weigh in on legal and technical aspects of the Zimmerman case, from the implications of witness testimony to the meaning of forensic evidence, such as the grass stains found on Martin's pants. Taaffe sparred on-air with attorneys about the finer points of criminal law and tangled with forensic experts—including Lawrence Kobilinsky, the chair of the science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice—over whether the small quantity of THC in Martin's blood could have made him violent. (Taaffe insisted that it could; Kobilinsky called this argument a "red herring.")
When Valerie Rao, Jacksonville, Florida's chief medical examiner, testified during the trial that Zimmerman's injuries were minor enough to be treated with Band-Aids—an assertion that cast doubt on Zimmerman's claims that Martin had bashed his head repeatedly on the sidewalk—Taaffe appeared on the Nancy Grace show and argued that Rao was dead wrong. "George was experiencing trauma!" Taaffe insisted. "He was having many concussions with each blow to his head. And he was entering into a state of unconsciousness where he was seeing his life flash before him."
After the prosecution released surveillance video from 7-Eleven showing Martin behaving normally as he shopped for Skittles and Arizona Ice Tea just before his death, Taaffe went on HLN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell show and muddied the water. Something could have happened in the intervening minutes to change Martin's mood, he argued. "Also, they found a cigarette lighter and $40 on him," Taaffe said, ominously. "He wasn't employed. You know, who gave him the $40?"Taaffe isn't the first member of Zimmerman's circle to be caught making racially charged statements. In March, Zimmerman's brother, Robert Zimmerman Jr. (another outspoken defender), tweeted a photo of a black Georgia teenager who allegedly murdered a one-year-old boy with a gunshot to the face, alongside a picture of Trayvon Martin. Both teens were flipping off the camera. The caption read, "A picture speaks a thousand words. Any questions?"
He's from New York
...weak-sauce trial was that?
I haven't done shyt to this guy. My lifestyle in no way "trends" on his. Yet for whatever reason, this guy instinctively hates my existence, just because of my skin tone...