Walking While Black
The Trayvon Martin case is a real mirror on America. If you've been away from media or tuned to Fox News, Martin is the African-American teen that was shot by a self-appointed neighborhood watch commander while returning to his home from the convenience store in Sanford, Florida. He was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest from 28-year-old George Zimmerman while Martin was armed with only a bottle of iced tea and a pack of Skittles. Syndicated radio host Michael Baisden, who has dedicated a week of programs to the case, today called the shooting "worse than that of Emmitt Till" in 1955, and that's a hard charge to argue when you consider it from a law enforcement standpoint.In the Martin case, police know definitively who did the shooting. There's a phone clip of Martin calling a girlfriend immediately prior to the shooting, telling her that he's being followed and that he will try to hide from his pursuer. They have a phone clip of Zimmerman calling 9-1-1-- reporting suspicious activity in his neighborhood for almost the fiftieth time in the last year-- saying to the dispatcher "Those assholes. They always get away with it." Then being told by the dispatcher not to pursue the individual he believes is suspicious. He left his truck and stalked his prey anyway.
We have a police department in Sanford that has still not filed charges against Zimmerman, even a full month after the slaying. We have the local police first stating that Zimmerman has no criminal record when, in fact, he was arrested in 2005 for pushing a state alcohol official that was arresting one of his friends. He was also once accused, though not convicted, of domestic violence by a female acquaintance. We have a department that lost their previous police chief to resignation last year following a scandal in which a lieutenant's son was captured on video beating a black homeless man. We have the deceased victim, Martin, being tested for drugs and alcohol after the shooting, but not the perpetrator Zimmerman. The cellphone records were not examined during the initial investigation, and witnesses are claiming that the police have not returned their phone calls, and in other cases, have twisted their testimony to fit Zimmerman's claim of "self-defense."
This is the institutional racism of the nation that African-Americans often point to, and that too many white Americans frequently deny. They accuse figures like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton of race-baiting when the public protests then erupt. But it's entirely one story when a paranoid gun nut in a "right-to-carry" state shoots an unarmed child for the offense of going out for candy during half-time of the NBA All-Star Game, it's another when a police department conspires to clear the killer's culpability.
The lack of progress on race and violence in this nation over six decades is discouraging to say the least. People who believe in an Obama-inspired post-racial America overestimate their fellow Americans about as much as they do their president. This story is about more than young black men being unsafe on their own streets and scapegoats for all that ails us. It's about more than our lunatic gun laws that allow a firearm easily into the hands of virtually anybody that wants one. It's even about more than our national police state, one which has grown beyond police corruption to include stupid self-defense laws, widespread citizen profiling and vigilantism. It's also about people who espouse that popular political idea that basically amounts to "I've got mine, now screw you" and they lock themselves up in gated communities and in neighborhoods that keep out the "other." Afraid of their own shadow, they then guard it against anybody they decide in a blink wants to take it away.
3/26/12: I originally had Trayvon's last name wrong. It is corrected.
posted by CM @ 5:56 PM
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