The shooter, George Zimmerman, was acquitted, his claim of self-defense validated by a jury. We have lined up to state our views about what should happen next: vocal protesters and advocates (I count myself among them) think that the system failed at critical points and should be corrected, from the “stand your ground” law that empowered Zimmerman to the investigation and prosecution of the case itself. Others are assembling to protect gun rights and the right to self-defense.
In service of these goals, we will march. We will tweet. The Justice Department will investigate, talk radio will opine, and some laws and policies will hopefully, needfully, be changed.
But when it is all over—when the political debates have run their course, when the pundits have moved on—we will still be left with something else. Something harder to describe. A set of noxious gut feelings about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman—and where we all stand on the issue of race.
For black Americans, it will be that sour, aching feeling that someone, in the dark of night—empowered by a weapon, a reason, and relative impunity—can gun us, or our sons, or our husbands, down. It’s that thing my fiancée felt when she looked at me after we watched the verdict, hands held, sitting on the floor of my office.
This is an intelligent woman, law-school educated, not overly emotional, and never at a loss for words; but channeling Trayvon’s mother, with a stunned look in her eyes, all she could muster was, “Can they really just kill our kids?”
For many white Americans, it will be a different though related sentiment that will linger. It’s a sentiment that is largely quiet on television and social media—because it would be swiftly condemned—but we must acknowledge that it’s there, that it’s represented in massive numbers across the country, in opinion polls, congressional districts, and, yes, on juries.
we are too busy denying ourselves as who we are all of us, except some of us that denial prevents us from moving forward by determination, others just prevents us.
until we are able to point to the one in the mirror and admit we are equally culpable and until we can look the other in the face and with out malice of forethought and actually listen to one anothers feelings as to why, as it applie, then respecting the why's on both sides and correct the misinterpretations.
holding on to what you think is right is not if it hurts or denies others, at that point it's prejudice.
It’s a view that has sympathy for the Martin family, but at the end of the day also has sympathy for George Zimmerman: You know, sue me, but a tall, hooded black man that I’ve never seen before in my neighborhood is maybe a little frightening. And I don’t know what happened next between Zimmerman and Trayvon. But if, God forbid, I, or my husband, or my wife, is ever in that situation, I might like the right to ... Most would shudder to finish the sentence.
When the verdict came, all my fiancée could muster was, ‘Can they really just kill our kids?’
Our marches will proceed, and they should. Our laws will be debated, and hopefully changed. A civil case, and a federal case, will at least be considered. But when it’s all said and done, in the pits of our stomachs, we are still left with this ... thing. Two new versions of a very old fear—with a wide chasm in between.
those of us who are and feel not included and those who choose not to include, what has it gotten you, all the obstruction and denial and skulduggery just to deny a selected group of Americans, what do you have now that you didn't have before beside the obvious thing that amplified this whole thing they have a Black President.
the racial problem has always been there but now more apparent by the right wings overzealous agenda to paint him as the crooked, gangster, angry Black man, that knows nothing about being a President, but he has done more with their obstructing then any of their Pres. did without it, really puts them in a bad place and causes them to show their true colors more aggressively
