I can't help but think of that touching scene in the movie "A Time To Kill" when Samuel Jackson's character is being tried for murdering two white men for raping his daughter. Mathew McConaughey asks the jury to play the crime back in their heads and at the end he says "now imagine the victim is white"! The reason why that was so important, is because the jury was unable to relate to the plight of Samuel Jackson. This is the same plight of the Trayvon Martins of the world. Trayvon was stereotyped from the beginning Zimmerman says "he looks suspicious", but what was he doing that looked suspicious? Zimmerman said "he looked like he was up to no good". He looked like he was up to no good ?, to me there was nothing about Trayvon that said up to no good. He assumed, because the neighborhood was an affluent, gated community that someone like him didn't belong there. He assumed that a black man in a hoodie and sweat pants could not have a legitimate reason to be there. Many whites will never know what it feels like to be in America and be looked at or made to feel as if they don't belong because of the color of their skin,and that is why Zimmerman is a free man today. Most of the depictions of young black males are negative and We (black people) play a huge role in that, although prejudice still plays a role in it as well. We wear our pants well below the waist exposing our underwear even though we are clearly wearing a belt. We call our woman "Bitches" and makes songs about it. We glorify the word Nigga (nigger) and once again this can be found in our music. What do you expect people to think of you when they hear you singing/dancing (dancing: oft times associated with being happy) songs about disrespecting woman including your mother, yourself, & your children. How can we sing songs about robbing and killing? In the words of todays young people "wheretheydothatat?"
Their is an old adage that says you should fight fire with fire. I can say I pretty much agree with that concept. The Stand Your Ground Law seems to be diametrically opposed to this. The law allows someone facing candle power to fight back with a blowtorch, and somehow that seems to be not just fair, buy legal. I often hear people reminiscing about the good old days, the days before guns played such a huge part in society and its squabbles. These squabble or fights were called "fair ones" because it was mano y mano, no weapons and may the best man win. Back then if you lost you went home cleaned up your wounds, and you went on with your life. Well today "fair ones" rarely exist unless a camera is rolling and someone yells out "Worldstar" but thats a whole other topic….we need help!. So back to the law called "Stand Your Ground" it basically says that if you feel your life is in danger it is ok to do whatever it takes up to and including deadly force to protect yourself. In layman's terms if you are in harms way you can do whatever it takes to get out of it. (sidebar)apparently it doesn't matter if you went out of your way to get into harms way. I digress ….. This law seems backwards to me, I can only assume a broken bone or bruised ego which allows you to see another day is to much to live with, especially if the person who did this to you is still alive. The thing I wasn't certain of was how can a man go looking for trouble, find it, and then decide he can invoke the law. That seems to be the biggest problem with this case, besides the fact that you are a grown man gong after a 17 year old kid, and assumed Trayvon was up to something, when in fact he was just going to the store. Think about it, What would you do? No what would you tell your child to do, if he or she was walking home and noticed someone following him/her? First thing is to run, and if you can't get away, you use whatever is available to help you get away, a stick, a bottle, a brick, because at this point self preservation is the objective. You would tell your child to get away if possible, but in the end you would tell him/her that if your life is in danger, it is ok to use force up to and including deadly force to protect yourself!
Did the jury even consider that Trayvon was just standing his Ground!
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