Do you have your interview tactics upside down ¿?

I read and talk to people a lot about interviews, mostly job interviews, but also about interviews for scholarships, awards and other recognitions. I have learned that a majority of the people I talk to (and the people who give them advice on interview techniques) in fact have their techniques upside down. Yes! I am taking a shot at the so call professionals in employment consultancy who give advice to potential candidates about interview techniques and preparation.

Before you ask me, I’ll tell you that I don’t have any degree in Human Resources (HR) or anything along the lines of recruitment and hiring, what I do have is great wealth of experience and practical transferrable skills about interviews and if you choose to continue reading you’ll know why you should listen to me. Simply because I have been through so much of them and never for once did I fail to impress myself. After all if you ask me on my cynical day I’ll tell you that you don’t need a HR degree (or anything like it) to make intelligent hiring decisions or give a valuable advice about job interviews and don’t get me wrong that doesn’t in anyway detract from the value of a HR degree.

And that last sentence is the problem with most interview candidates (and their advisors) that I have spoken to or read about, they’ve their tactics, from preparation, appearance and the questions they ask upside down (or so I think). For example how many of us walk into or out of a job interview asking the question will they hire me? I’d say almost everyone I know and that is the upside down thinking I’m talking about. The real question should be; will I hire me? Based on your preparedness for an interview, how you plan to sell your strengths in alignment with the job and how you plan to convince the interviewer/s that you are the best candidate for the job, you should be asking yourself “Will I hire me if I was the hiring manager”, of course all other things being equal. And if your answer to that question is anything less than a definite “yes” then you’re not in fact the rightful candidate for that job.

I know “all things are not equal” and that’s fine, but the point is that you’ve to believe that you’re the right person for a job before anyone else believes you. And sometimes you’re going to go to interviews believing (while been realistic) that you’d definitely hire yourself if you were the hiring manager, but you wouldn’t still get the job and that is because all things are not equal. Sometimes other candidates are just more qualified than you, sometimes you’re overqualified for the job, sometimes your specific skills set is not what the company is looking for at that time and sometimes companies just already have their favorite candidate in mind even before the interview, perhaps because of a referral, internal applications, networking or just something that gave them that edge over you. But at least you didn’t get the job not because you’re good enough or not because even you wouldn’t have hired yourself if you were hiring. Listen all I am saying is that you should be able to tell yourself (without knowing about the other candidates) that you’d hire yourself base on your interview.

I have been to a lot of interviews and the toughest one also happens to be my first real interview. Just about eight years ago, while attending College for my Associate degree, I interviewed for an “Accounting Associate” position within a multi-national holding company and I must add that I didn’t apply for this job, instead a friend of mine (who was the relationship manager of the company at one of the many Financial Institutions they dealt with) referred me. I was still young and it was my first interview, I obviously didn’t prepare well enough, but I was passionate about accounting. Long story cut short, I walked into the interview waiting area and there were five other candidates waiting, all of them way more qualified than me, two of them were graduating from University. I know them because the person who recommended me for the job didn't just recommend me alone. So when one of the interviewers came out to brief us about the process and finally asked who wanted to go first, believing that I had no chance against the “big boys” and “a girl” my hand was in the air even before he could finish the question. I got in there and the first question I got was also my last question. One of the interviewers gave me a scenario about a transaction involving three of their subsidiary companies and asked how I’d enter that transaction into the various accounts. I asked if I could borrow a pen and paper and after giving a demonstrative answer on the paper, the next question was about my salary expectations.

I know by now you’re wondering why I took so much space to talk about this specific interview and the answer is simple: because it just reiterate my earlier point about having your interview tactics upside down, I wouldn’t have hired myself with the attitude I walked into that interview room, I didn’t believe in myself from the moment I saw those university graduates and more importantly I didn’t believe I was the best candidate in the room, but! but they asked me a question and I seized the moment, I gave a magnificent answer and boy I walked out of that interview telling myself “I would hire myself” based on the answer I gave to the interviewers. You know I actually walked home from that interview stress free, I wasn’t worried about not getting the job because I knew I did exactly just what I had to do. If there was anything that I was hoping for that afternoon, it was that their assessment was based on the interview performance and it didn’t take very long for me to find out, I got a call that evening, I was the preferred candidate.

Interviewing great for the first time is fundamental to landing your desired job, but what happens next if you fail your first interview? After giving it all you could, like one of those situations I mentioned earlier e.g. they hired an internal applicant or a candidate whose qualifications are more in line with what the company is looking for. What do you do? Where do you draw the line? This is another area of upside down strategy that I have noticed among interviewees and their advisors alike. A common response is to apply again, but what do you tell them in your next interview that you haven’t in the first one? (That’s if you get the invite). How about just writing right back to the interviewer telling them how you feel, this is not a marketing stunt, this is telling them that you’re disappointed you didn’t get the job if you were indeed disappointed, this is showing them your level of enthusiasm about the job and working for the company (be realistic), this is the time to make this person remember your name for next time and more importantly this is the time to build a relationship (network) with that person. A lot of people believe that hiring managers don’t read those letters, there’s an element of truth to that, I think there is, but not when you make them want to read it, tell them how feel but also acknowledge the positives of the interview process, remember this is not the time to dwell on the negatives. Here’s a good example:

Dear Mr. Doe,                              

“I would be lying if I said I'm anything but keenly disappointed that I wasn't selected for a second interview for the position of JUNIOR ASSOCIATE at XYZ Ltd. But knowing how professionally and thoroughly each candidate was assessed, and having had the opportunity to chat with you at the first interview, I'm also honoured to have been on that short list. I appreciate that your job of selection was very, very difficult.”

I don’t always write this follow up letters, but if I miss out on a job opportunity along my desired career path, a job I am passionate about, then I make sure I write one, because I know I’m going to apply again when the opportunity arises and when I do I make sure I reference back to the first interview. What this does is, it gives you something to tell the hirer in your next application, for example saying something like:

“I have had the opportunity to chat with [Insert Managers name] when I first interviewed for this position in [date 200X] who gave me an insight into this role and I knew it is a position I’d love right away, I have since never stopped looking for this openings within [Company name]”.

With a statement like the above there are two possibilities; the manager either remember your post interview letter (because not everyone writes them), if not from the interview or if it is the type of manager who conducts hundreds of interviews, then he would want to see this guy again. Either way you just make the manager want to see you again, which is the key purpose of a resume.

Job interviews are not a rocket science, in fact it is not very hard to figure out the qualities companies are looking for from their job postings (and sometimes they make these qualities unnecessary complicated), but your job is to make them simple, most often than not all you need is to be able to learn. Listen, all I’m saying is that you have to be the first person to believe that you've those qualities before anyone else could. 

Tricky answer to a tricky question. Cheating CEO Husband (Wife) or faithful jobless Husband (Wife)?

Would you rather have a Husband (Wife) who is jobless but honest or A Husband (Wife) who is a CEO but cheats; given you’re jobless? This was one of the questions when I and a couple of friends were playing a game on a smart phone. The popular answer was the jobless, but faithful husband (wife). In fact all the girls chose the honest jobless husband within the blink of an eye.

I on the hand had one clarification before I could make my decision; what kind of CEO is she? I know by now you’re wondering what kind of person asks a question like that, but if I’m going to have a cheating CEO wife, it better be a CEO who at least makes enough money to make me a millionaire once we divorce, which by the way is a matter of when than if. 

And you know what, for a jobless man with a jobless wife that same cheating CEO you didn’t marry might as well end up sleeping with your wife.  Soooo! You end up with the jobless and the cheating wife. Seriously, I swear that was, and I repeat that was a JOKE! If that makes sense to you. 

What about an NBA with Relegation?

The beauty of European Sports or more specifically the beauty of the beautiful game (Soccer) is that you pay a price for finishing on the bottom of the standings i.e. Relegation. In European Soccer a team gets relegated to the next lower league if it finishes on the bottom of the standing of the current league it is playing in.  Relegation makes the game much more interesting than otherwise because there is something to play for at both ends of the standing. That’s why in European Soccer games you hardly ever hear the term “Spoiler” as in American Sports. Because if you’re on the bottom of the standings with no possibility of winning the Championship, then you’re also fighting for your life to stay in that league. This unquestionably, gives you more desire to win games than any championship game.

Meanwhile in the NBA, once any mathematical probability of a team making the play-offs is crushed, then there’s arguably no motivation for them to play, because there is no punishment for finishing on the bottom of the standings, in fact isn’t there a reward for finishing with a bad record in the NBA? I thought so, because the worst teams get the first draft picks. As one New York Knicks fan told me “The Knicks should just intentionally lose the rest of their games to have great picks in the draft”. I actually liked the NBA’s idea of drafting system to give lower teams chance of recruiting top prospects for the purpose of parity. But when this gives teams an incentive to finish on the bottom once they know they wouldn’t make the play-offs, then the whole purpose becomes questionable. I am not saying NBA teams do this but they could. And personally I have my own reservations about whether the regulation of many, if not all American sports is for the claimed parity or for the money (For the league and the Franchise owners).

Like the title of this post, “How about an NBA relegation”, where the bottom teams in the Eastern and Western Conference gets relegated automatically. The question becomes, I guess, relegated to where? I don’t know, make one up. That’s the problem with the NBA, it’s the only league where you can play professional basketball as in most other North American sports. But where is the room for development? The NBA D league? I don’t think so, how do you develop in an uncompetitive league? As one NBA fan told me “it’s not even a league bro” when I proposed that it could be used for relegation. Take the British Barclays Premier League (BPL) for example, it is an NBA equivalent with 20 teams. Every year the three bottom teams get automatically relegated to the next bottom professional league, The Npower Championship and the top two teams and one player-off winner from the Npower Championship gets promoted to the BPL.  The bottom three teams in the Npower Championship also get relegated to the next lower division called the Npower league one, giving opportunity to the top teams in that league to also get promoted to a higher league. This process continues to the lowest division, essentially offering all teams an opportunity to compete in the top league based on performance.

This system of relegation maintains the importance of the games played by the supposedly lower ranked teams towards the end of the season, which might be at the risk of relegation. “In contrast, a low-ranked US or Canadian team's final games serve little purpose, and in fact losing may be beneficial to such teams, yielding a better position in the next year's draft.” Relegation comes with a huge cost to a team due to the different monetary pay-outs and revenue generating potential from the different divisions e.g. ticket sales, Commercials and T.V Viewing. As a result teams will avoid relegation and give their fans nothing less than their money’s worth when they log horns with the so called top ranked teams. No Championship game comes closer to the intensity of a game involving two potential relegating teams or a potential relegation team and a Potential Championship team. Because when two teams compete for a championship it is for glory, but when two teams compete to avoid relegation, they fight for their lives; They leave every single bit of energy in them on the pitch and I swear I have seen this games, they’re nothing short of a “Soccer War” where winning is the line between life and death.

If you make it to this point you’re probably wondering, why would you implement relegation in the NBA? Because for one it is going to expand basketball into untapped markets while creating opportunities for players who cannot make it to the NBA directly. Second it will be much more fun and interesting to watch the NBA because every team is playing for something, albeit at the two extreme ends of the standings. And finally because teams that are not good enough for the NBA will get relegated to the appropriate level and get replaced with teams that are prepared to compete in the league on yearly basis. Is the NBA ever going to consider the system of relegation? No! or at least not in the near future if you ask me. There is just too much politics buried under the so call “Regulation” of North American sports that doesn’t just support the system of relegation as in most European sports. The NBA specifically is too monetized and they won’t just let the New York Knicks get relegated and the potential loss of revenue that comes along with it, for example.

Love Sports.

Lives Soccer!

Failures of Risk rating Agencies during the Global Financial Crisis

This is a short excerpt from my independent study research paper title; "Failures of Risk management during the financial crisis and the new trends for the post crisis era". I have a full copy of the paper in PDF available for anyone interested in reading it or for reference. Just leave a comment and I will be in touch. Enjoy!

Credit rating agencies (CRA's) long periods after their establishment have done a great job at maintaining their high authority and determined adequate ratings assessing, with relative perfection, the actual probability of debtor’s insolvency. While there was also some other objective reasons for the wrong decisions by CRA’s in the past crises like the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis of 2008 showed that most of the inaccuracies in credit rating can be due solely to the mistakes of the rating agencies. Firms like Lehman Brothers went bankrupt while its investment rating was an investment one (A-). Another big corporation AIG insurance had same investment rating (A-) when it was bailed out by the federal financial aid. No evidence of fraud or submission of false information was found in either case. Both companies were public and operated on the most sophisticated financial market with highest standards of transparency. Thus, the deterioration of the financial condition of this firms was a permanent one, not temporary. Hence, the fault of the rating agencies in these cases is beyond doubt.

What was intriguing about the CRA’s was that studies found that despite the individual cases of  inappropriate (inadequate) ratings, the agencies’ overall rating of corporate bonds do reflect the actual associated credit risk.

(Rafailov 2011) claimed that the most significant failure of CRA is the assessment of the risk of mortgage-backed securities and mostly of collateralised debt obligations (CDO). This argument seems to support the evidence that the global financial crisis resulted from the defaults in sub-prime mortgage backed securities.

 Causes of the Failures

•      The entity issuing the securities pays the main portion of the fees determining the ratings and thus the CRA becomes dependent on this fees and the conflict of interest thereto. The agencies have an incentive to overlook problems with a company’s credibility and issue a higher rating than actual (or deserved) in order to attract more clients by doing so and at the same time will not lose current clients who would go to another agency. This was a fundamental problem due to the conflict of interest issue with investors’ interests requiring an unbiased assessment of the issuer. With regards to structured financial instruments (SFI) the problem with the business model was escalated because most part of the issuance of SFI’s is controlled by a few big investment banks and hence forming a major part of the income of CRA’s.

•         Lack of authority to verify the information. It is interesting to understand that credit ratings are based on voluntary information provided by the issuer. The CRA have no authority to verify the authenticity of the information provided and have no power to request further information by compulsion. Therefore, under such circumstances the issuer can conceal unfavourable information which enables overrating.

•      The problem of “The Big Three” i.e. no competition. The CRA market is basically controlled by the three biggest rating agencies (Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch), that control 95% of the market (Langohr 2008 pp. 384-386). This creates an environment in which the opinion the investors receive is not diverse with regards to an issue, and it can lead to the formation of a cartel by the big three agencies to maintain monopolistic high prices for their services and can conduct coordinated policies to segment the market. Moreover under such an environment the risk assessment as well as business models applied are restricted to a certain level of diversity as there are only three firms controlling 95% of the market.

•          The Regulatory Body’s over reliance on Credit ratings. The regulators substantially relied on credit ratings and information produced by CRA’s in regulating the financial market. For instance some financial institutions are allowed to invest in debt instruments only if they have an investment rating provided by some defined CRA’s. Also in its determination of capital requirements of banks and other financial institutions, the regulatory authority uses the credit rating to determine the riskiness and value of various instruments. Furthermore the Central Banks had minimum credit rating requirements when granting refinancing to chartered banks. All these implicitly practically handed regulatory power to CRA’s through change of credit rating as their decisions/actions have enormous impact on the decisions of a lots of investors. This status of regulatory nature creates systematic risk, because it motivates the institutions to invest in overrated securities

•   Conflict of Interest. Normally the CRA firms that determines an issuer’s credit rating also gives professional advice to firms about how their different actions will affect their credit rating. This is a clear conflict of interest as same CRA that advice a firm how to maintain a sound credit rating will have no incentive to criticize its own work by giving a bad credit rating. Obviously the CRA’s will not want to upset the issuers and lost business by giving consulting advice on one hand and giving anything less than satisfactory rating on the other hand. In a nutshell credit rating and consultancy services are practically incompatible for any firm to combine without bias, for example how do you criticize your own advice? This was a really huge and arguably one of the most serious problem with the credit rating.

•        The problem with dependence on mathematical models. This is a common problem in structured instruments where ratings are based on the use of mathematical models, by which the probability of insolvency of different pools of debt obligation is modeled. These mathematical models do not have any component of fundamental analysis or expert assessment of the issuer’s financial condition. Rafailov (2011) argued that “the events during the global financial crisis showed that in most cases the models used are incomplete. They do not account for the presence of asymmetry of the information among borrowers, originator banks, financial institutions securitizing them (arrangers), rating agencies and investors”. He used the originator risk as an example, arguing that Originator banks have an incentive to deceive the arrangers and the rating agencies’ regarding the true creditability of borrowers. “For the information is not examined, there is created a moral risk that the originator banks provide false information as well as reduce the criteria upon lending of loans. The problem further deteriorates due to the fact that after securitization the lending banks do not assume the credit risk any more. Thus, there is no incentive for them to maintain high standards upon lending. As a result of that risk the actual probability of insolvency under individual loans is bigger than the one implied in the model and the credit rating is too optimistic” (Rafailov 2011). Another problem with this mathematical models is lack of complete information. For the determination of the credit rating for these structured instruments depends entirely on the mathematical model, the quality of the final results depends on the quality of the input information. As argued earlier, however, the CRA’s have no authority to request verification of information and if the information given is wrong or incomplete, then this mathematical model will give a misleading result.

•     Lack of efficient Regulation in the credit rating industry. CRA’s play a fundamental role in the sound functioning of the financial system, however, their business wasn’t governed by any strict regulation for long times prior to the crisis in 2008, depending entirely on self-regulation.

The above specified problems explain the reasons for inaccurate ratings determined by the CRA’s. Given the fact these problems were especially serious in the case of SFI’s, the failure in that area is not accidental. This failure hugely contributed to the events that lead to the rise and magnitude of the 2008 financial crisis. Without the work of the CRA’s the issue of overrated risky mortgage backed securities would not have been enormous as it was, investors would not have invested in the volume they did in these securities without the overrated risk because their expected return would not have been high compared to the risk assessment. As a matter of fact the banks would not have the propensity to securitize their loans at the lower realistic rating, because at this rating they would have received lower prices for them. Moreover without the overrating the investment banks facilitating the process would have made less profit because the spread between what they receive under securitized loans and what they pay under Tranches would have been lower if the tranches rating were lower. 

Call it Soccer or Football; Which League is the best League? Again!

Probably the third time that this question pop up in my blog. Today’s one isn’t something I even thought about writing, instead today a middle-of-the-road soccer fan asked me this question and I was so much impressed with my response that I couldn’t just help but share it.

This young lad is an Arsenal fan and he asked me which league is the best league to watch and I said to him; “it depends on what you mean by best, if you are looking for parity in a top league, then look no further than the Italian Serie A (pronounced say-re-Aah). If however, you are looking for entertainment and competition then check out the English Premier league, it is the most watched league in the World. The Spanish league is great, except that Barcelona and Madrid set-up teams to crush minnows, the Spanish league is all about Barcelona and Madrid, while in the English Premier League Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and arguably Tottenham are all possible contenders for the title".

And yea it is not about how many people agree with that response that impressed me, instead it was how representative that answer was of me, the words just slide through my tongue off my mind. Those words are not just your everyday pundit “carefully worded qualifying statements”. In modern day slang, that was the real talk (Josh).

Peace out.

Why most surprising “Not Guilty” jury verdicts happen; understanding the system design

Just two days ago I wrote a three page article about the George Zimmerman trial where I talked so much about the jury and their unpopular verdict, but I didn’t talk about how jury decisions are reached. I feel that I owe it to myself & my audience to talk about how our justice system is designed and how this is the cause of most “Not Guilty” verdicts.

When a person is accused of a crime and faces a trial, the prosecution presents its case and the jury makes a decision based on the evidence presented. The jury have two options to make a decision about the defendant; “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”. There’re only two possible decisions; convicting or acquitting the defendant.

There is a possibility of the jury making an error, because the jury consist of people and people are fallible. In fact the jury can make only two types of errors. Convicting an innocent person wrongly or acquitting a guilty defendant. The question is which type of error is more serious? Because the two errors are negatively related, an attempt to reduce one increases the probability of committing the other.

Convicting an innocent person is considered (and I agree with this) very serious in our justice system, as a result the system is designed to make the chances of this type of error happening small. This is why the system put the burden on the prosecution to proof the guilt, the defense need not to proof anything. The judges instruct the jury to find the defendant guilty only if there is “evidence beyond reasonable doubt”. Without enough evidence, the jury must acquit the defendant even though there might be some evidence of guilt.

Since the two errors are negatively related & our justice system is arranged to minimize the probability of convicting innocent people, then the probability of acquitting guilty people is relatively high. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a US Supreme Court Justice, once said “Better to acquit 100 guilty men than convict one innocent one”.

This explains why most jury trials that the public think otherwise end up in a “Not Guilty” verdict, it’s not because there is no evidence of the defendant committing the crime, but it’s because there is just not enough evidence to find him/her guilty of the crime. That’s why you never hear the phrase “Found Innocent”, because we can never tell if a defendant is actually innocent, all we can say is that the evidence is not enough to suggest that they commit the crime.

So our justice system is designed to rather let more guilty people walk free than wrongly convict one single person. This is a conscious choice & we must live by the consequences of the choice, but I guess the question is what the consequence of our next best alternative is? If you are the type who supports the second alternative, then I suggest you watch the movie hurricane starring Denzel Washington and based on a true story.

This whole “Zimmerman Trayvon Martin” case is a FARCE

The public outrage & dismay over the acquittal of George Zimmermann for the murder of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old Sanfield, FLORIDA teenager is unprecedented in any case of its kind. While the public attention is fixated on the absurd two word final verdict of the mis-informed jury, I decided to take a step back to assess the Scenarios that lead to this devastating outcome and the aftermath.

I came-up with one and only one conclusion; the title of this article. From the Prosecution, the defense attorney, the testimonies, the media and the Jury, the entire trial was a farce. How does each of these parties play into what leads to a legitimate trial turning into a farce?

The prosecution break rule number one, they did what they tell you not to do “Never bring a witness to stand unless you are sure of what they are going to say”. The prosecution brought in Chris Serino, the lead homicide investigator of the case and his testimony helped the defense than it helped the prosecution, if it did help the prosecution at all. This is a really weird act, since it is my understanding that in Florida they have this depositions where the attorneys have the opportunity to cross examine the witnesses before they go on stand in the courtroom. If the prosecution couldn’t figure out that Mr Serino would say what he said, then shame on them, if they did know he would say what he said and still bring him to stand, shame on them. An entire book can be written about the role of detective Serino in this whole trial, obviously this article is not enough to discuss his role, but I will give a brief overview of him; He is the person who recommended manslaughter charges against George Zimmerman and at one point during his investigation he told Zimmerman, I quote: “Had you told this child that you were neighbourhood watch & you were just wondering what the hell he was doing when he came up to your car, you probably wouldn’t be here right now”. But During his testimony detective Serino told the court that he believe that Zimmerman was been truthful.

The ridiculous irresponsible knock knock joke made by the defense Attorney Don West at the start of his cross examination of Rachel Jeantel explains why I call the defense a joke, not to mention his irrational and dubious remark about the prosecution; Calling the prosecution “A disgrace” for pursuing the case, it’s an insult to the US Justice system to think that trying such a case was disgrace. You got to be really stupid to even think that any system will just believe, without trial in a story told by a man who has a long history of violence & trouble with the law after shooting an innocent unarmed teenager, and yep I just called Don west stupid, as a matter of fact if it only takes what he did to win this case, then just any unversed criminal lawyer could have won the case. I called Mr West a total joke because you could easily tell his expressions were filled with hatred and anger for no good reason.

With regards to the testimonies and specifically with the testimony of detective Chris Serino, something didn’t click to me. Here is the man who recommended a man slaughter charge against Zimmerman after investigating into the case and then he testify to the absolute opposite of that by saying that Zimmerman was telling the truth, why would you recommend a manslaughter charge when he was telling the truth all this time? I mean if he killed Trayvon Martin in act of self defense, then why are we here? The prosecution brought him in and he helped the defense market its case to the jury. Chris Serino concluded that Zimmerman was either telling the truth or he was a pathological liar, to Mr Serino I say “You’re either an absolute joke or you’re a pathologically inconsistent liar”. The fact that the defense counsel proceeded to ask him whether he has any insight from his investigation that Mr Zimmerman is a pathological liar give me the impression that the latter is the truth. The defense must have a pretty damn good idea what his response was going to be before taking the risk of asking him that question, my own question is how on earth didn’t the prosecution figured this out during the deposition? There can be only one possible answer; He must be a pathologically inconsistent liar.

These whole episodes of farce lead us to the most important group in the case, the people who made the call that George Zimmerman is free of the charges of murdering Trayvon Martin. The jury took 16 hours to come up with just two words, “NOT GUILTY” to close the case, 16 hours and they wouldn’t even say what wasn’t he not found guilty of, isn’t that creepy? I mean come on after 16 hours you ought to come up with something better. I know that the final decision comes down to whether he was found guilty or not, but in a case of this magnitude and the time they took to reach their publicly unpopular verdict, the jury have the moral responsibility of explaining to the public and the family of the victim whether the verdict was reached by unanimous or majority decision or perhaps to explain whether they haven’t just found the accused guilty of the “Murder” & “manslaughter" charge or they found him absolutely “NOT GUILTY”.

But if anyone think race haven’t played any role in the final verdict of the jury, then you definitely need to go right back to Kindergarten, yep you definitely have the brain of a two year old. Its obvious Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin, but there is not just enough evidence to suggest that his murder was racially motivated, it’s a tough call to say Zimmerman just killed Trayvon because of his race, who knows? He might just be another monster who should pay for the price of his actions regardless of the race of Trayvon. My theory though is that the final verdict of the case would’ve been different if the positions were swapped. I must say that I’m person who doesn’t let himself to be limited by this race issue, but we have to tell the truth and the best way to solve a problem is to discuss it, we cannot deceive ourselves that something doesn’t exist, when there is clear evidence that it does, this will just escalate the problem if anything. We cannot just let innocent kids go through what Trayvon Martin went through whether they are Black, White, Hispanic, Latino, Asian or Native American, with the perpetrators walking away free.

And let me make it clear that I’m not suggesting that the jury verdict was racially motivated; I honestly am not. What I think however, is that they let their perceptions, prejudices and stereotypes take the best of their judgement. I’m of the believe that the jury would have reached a different verdict if they just forgot about who gave what testimony or forgot about that character that the defense have made Trayvon Martin I.e. growing /smoking Marijuana, kicked out of school or what not.  I think the jury found it conveniently easy to believe in some witnesses than others, for example Rachel Jeantel, She represented her true self during her testimony, she act the way she would in everyday real life scenario you can tell, what people forget to remember is that cultural and racial barriers/differences exist and you will be surprised to find out how many grown-ups are out there who have no idea that there is a grey part to life where most people live as opposed to their perceived “Black & White” categorization. To the jury the tone of her voice, her language of expression, her body language or her outfit may represent an unreliable/irresponsible witness, but it’s her spoken words that should matter. Stereotypes exist & sometimes we all get caught up by this judgemental act without even realizing it.

I have no doubt or whatsoever that had the jury put themselves in Zimmerman’s position from the moment of the 911 call to the shooting & killing of Trayvon Martin, they wouldn’t have found him NOT GUILTY. If the jury had asked them selves what would they have done if Trayvon Martin had attacked them as Zimmerman claimed and they‘re as big as George Zimmerman, I’m pretty sure their actions wouldn’t include reaching for their gun. Zimmerman could have easily stepped back and avoid any physical contact with Trayvon the moment he realised that he was unarmed and innocent, but he didn’t because perhaps he knew he had a gun hidden that Trayvon didn’t knew about. The reality is that, we all know even if Trayvon had indeed attacked Zimmerman, he wouldn’t have done this had he known Zimmerman was armed. It doesn’t take a genius to tell that Zimmerman would have escaped from the altercation with Trayvon without any life threatening injuries if he wasn’t armed with a gun, he definitely would with his size compared to Trayvon’s. As a matter of fact he could‘ve avoided the whole altercation by telling Trayvon that he was a neighbourhood watch & just thought he looked suspicious. I’m pretty sure anyone of the six Jurors wouldn’t have got into a power struggle with Trayvon if he looked as suspicious as Zimmerman had claimed to the 911 operator, why would Zimmerman do it then? He must’ve known something that we all didn’t know & I guess will never know.

To add salt to injury, the media reaction after the jury verdict was ridiculous, it was a total joke to watch CNN and see the type of ill-informed people who were given TV space. People like Robert Zimmerman become a common face in America for the wrong stupid reasons, a guy who doesn’t know what he is talking about for one reason and secondly was just instigating public feud. Robert Zimmerman if he really cares should’ve been with his brother in the courtroom in Florida when the verdict was given rather than talking gibberish at some TV interviews in NY. He made some really horrendous comments & remarks that were just utter and blatant lies, like saying to Piers Morgan, I quote; “Trayvon had plans for George that night” , I mean isn’t that an insult to the intelligence of the audience? The evidence is out there that the kid was followed while walking home. He Robert Zimmerman told Don Lemon that he will like to understand what make people as angry as Trayvon was, to this I respond; He should first try to understand what makes people as stupid as Zimmerman was. I’m not taking sides here but let’s face it; Robert Zimmerman lacks the moral to give interviews to a global audience.

It irritates me when CNN vaunt about bringing some expert opinion to the audience after the commercial and next thing you know people like Buck Davis are on live TV, the guy who have no clue about the topic in discussion. Buck Davis is another big idiot; the guy thinks George Zimmerman had no idea about the race of Trayvon Martin when the 911 call evidence was all over the news, are you kidding me? Even the anchorman Don Lemon had to remind him that the 911 call was there for everyone to see, after which he had to change his story. When the story was about Trayvon Martin, he brought in how an African American was murdered in Chicago for refusing to join a gang; again the host had to remind him that was a different case and not the focus of the discussion, what a joke! People like Buck Davis should just save themselves the embarrassment and keep their opinions to themselves, but be it Buck Davis or Robert Zimmerman, blame it on the people who give them the opportunity to air their ill-informed opinions to the World.

Call me a sceptic or a cynic if you like, but for me the dots just didn’t connect in the whole Zimmerman trial and unless the missing dots are found, the Trayvon Martin murder will not change a thing, much like how the Connecticut, New Town shooting didn’t change a thing about America’s gun laws. Just two or less weeks of breaking news headline or a top story, whatever you call it.