Five days after the Zimmerman trial, the anger is still palpable. From the news to social media, the second that verdict was read the emotions of Black America have been running high. We'd all like to believe there is no White America and Black America, as then-senator Obama said in his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. But, after seeing the vastly different way that Black and White people have read this case, we all know that's a lie.
I'm not a mother, but like Melissa Harris-Perry this makes me "wish my sons away." The idea of bringing a Black boy into this world scares me to death because I wouldn't be able to protect him.
The one positive aspect of this case is the dignity that Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin have shown during this case. We rarely see divorced Black parents in the media that get along and are successful co-parents. They've presented a united front from day one and have shown America a new image of the Black family and I applaud them for that.
The biggest shocker of this case besides the verdict itself is the different ways this case has been interpreted. Black people see Trayvon as a typical teenager who looks like someone we know. Whites (some, not all) see him as a threatening man with a checkered past. Though, I don't understand how much of a checkered past a 17 year-old could really have. But, the point is that we live such segregated lives that it makes it difficult to see the humanity in someone and have empathy for someone that you don't know. This case has put the racial divide under a microscope and it has become the defining moment in what I feel is the new Civil Rights Movement. Trayvon Martin is the new Emmitt Till and Twitter has become the new church basement where our movements are organized. I don't know where we go from here or how America is ever gonna heal from this. But, our pain is nothing compared to Sybrina and Tracy's.
Your blindness to the FACTS of this case is laughable at best and has you so blinded to reality that you have turned this into so much more than it is.
ReplyDeleteFirst off your "how much of a checked past could a 17yo have" is an easy answer. He manufactured, sold and used illegal substances. He purchased a handgun illegally. I'd say he was not a model citizen by any stretch.
He was a racist young man who attacked someone whom he thought was following him.
The only people who made this about race where black folks who cannot see past the fact the he was black. Period. By the letter of the law Martin was the aggressor by attacking Zimmerman. It is a fact that witnesses confirm. Because Martin was the aggressor there was no crime on Zimmerman's part. I still do not see why people are jumping on this like it is a civil rights issue, it isn't. A man was attacked, he defended himself. End of story. It is tragic but the racist rhetoric from the minority group involved is empty. It simply shows that YOU are blinded by the facts of the case by the color of your own skin. Until Black people let that go, they will always be fighting a phantom civil rights issue.