Yes, another one did get away.
The acquittal of George Zimmerman on all charges is not a surprise, but it is still painful. Once again, black folks got a nasty taste of the medicine: You are worthless.
We are sad, angry, disgusted.
Those are human emotions that must be expressed at times like this. That energy must be channeled into changing the institutions that deal with our children: media, schools, police, courts and prisons.
Black males are continuing to be assaulted and killed at alarming rates. We must make this is a national issue, as the forces bearing down on black boys are created and/or tolerated by the broader society.
We need to get past the fantasy of a post-racial society and ramp up the discussion about preserving and protecting the lives of young, black males. We need to hook up with other justice-seeking people and bust out of our trauma zone.
This is a national issue, but it’s no accident this incident happened where it did. Florida historically had a larger per capita percentage of Klu Klux Klan lynchings of black folks than any other state in the country. Central Florida, where Sanford is located, is still home to many Klansman and neo-Nazi groups.
Murders and assaults of blacks by whites have often gone unprosecuted there. The home of Seminole County’s first NAACP branch president was firebombed in 1951 by the KKK. Harry Moore and his wife, Harriette, were killed. Even baseball great Jackie Robinson was run out of Sanford back in 1946. Police and vigilante terror was and is used to maintain the status quo of white supremacy in Sanford.
In the Zimmerman trial, the jury of five whites and one juror of unknown racial identity deliberated using a social and political perspective informed by life in Sanford. The jurors were also under the social pressure by their community to protect the gun rights of white citizens.
Where blacks are seen as criminals and white citizens cherish the right to use their guns to stand their ground, we find an intersection of deadly consequences.
I watched most of the trial. The prosecution deserves a share of the blame. It never gave the jury a compelling visual image of what happened that fateful night of February 26, 2012. As Roderick Bell told me on social media, the prosecution is “so used to railroading defendants, they don’t know how to present a real case.”
You’ve heard the police dispatcher tapes. Trayvon was walking home from the store and was identified by Zimmerman as a black criminal up to no good. Despite being told not to follow the kid, he continued to stalk Trayvon.
I believe the teen tried to lose the stalker by doing a duck and dodge. Zimmerman then appeared out of nowhere in front of Trayvon, who had no choice to defend himself. He punched Zimmerman and they got into a tussle. A terrified Trayvon began fighting for his life and screaming for help.
He was able to knock Zimmerman off him and stand up. Zimmerman quickly stood up and took out his loaded gun out and shot Trayvon before he could get away.
Zimmerman, unable to prove his prowess as a cop in previous situations, believed this shooting would convince people that he had what it takes to protect his neighborhood. He had just saved the neighborhood from a black thug. His worst nightmare began when it was discovered the suspect was not a criminal on the way to a burglary, but an unarmed child on the way home from a store.
Zimmerman got away, but we must stop this from happening again. Otherwise, we will face escalating violence between black males and the police and other extrajudicial forces such as security guards and vigilantes.
Shame on us if adults can’t get it together and our young people are left with no choice but to defend themselves by any means necessary.
