“George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, and Me”

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James Loreen's Jamea Loewen's JAMES LOEWEN, jloewen at uvm.edu
When George Zimmerman launched a new website, it highlighted quotes from Thomas Paine, Henrik Ibsen, Edmund Burke — and James Loewen. Indeed, Loewen was the only living person Zimmerman quoted — specifically for his statement, “People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. Evidence must be located, not created, and opinions not backed by evidence cannot be given much weight.”

Loewen recently wrote the piece “George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, and Me,” which states: “I’m happy to be in the company of Burke, Ibsen, and Paine. … I’m not happy with being used as a resource by George Zimmerman, and I disclaim any relationship with him and his cause. Of course, once they have unleashed words upon the world — in particular, upon the World Wide Web — authors have no control over their use, for good or ill. Moreover, one reason why I have not written a thing about the death of Trayvon Martin is my lack of facts. I know only what I have learned from the newspapers (yes, I subscribe) and other media. Anyone likely to read anything I might write about the matter has already read the same sources.

“I would like to know how George Zimmerman learned of my words that he used. They appear on page 358 of ‘Lies My Teacher Told Me.’ While I would like to believe he read the entire book, if he did, he seems to have missed its anti-racist central message.”

Loewen’s other books include “Lies Across America” and “The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader.” See a talk of his about his book “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism,” which exposes towns and neighborhoods that were or are closed to non-whites.