I'm always backed up on my DVR, so as I sat down to catch up on the View, I stumbled onto the recording from the Monday after the Verdict. One look at Sherri's face brought all the pain I've been trying to deal with over the pass week rushing back. I saw the same horror in her eyes, as she asked Dan Abrams, the question so many black mothers are asking. What do I tell my son? I was proud of her for choosing not to sit at the same table with the defense team during their segment. I was also proud of Whoopi for challenging the ridiculous statements made by the attorneys in defense of their murderous client.
Having said all of that, it's been a week since this awful miscarriage of justice occurred, and just like the election of President Obama, it has brought all the racism, hatred and, mistrust, that is never far from reach in this country, teeming to the surface. Look at the comments from any blog posting, or article, be it Fox, NPR, or even your Facebook page, and it's there for all the world to see.
This is the fact. A 17-year-old boy was shot dead by an armed civilian. His crime, walking home from the store to his father's home, while covering his head from the rain with his hoodie, and refusing to answer the questions of a strange man stalking him in an unfamiliar car. For these offenses he was sentenced to death.
As horrible as that was, what has been even worse, or rather incomprehensible, has been the inability for a certain segment of this country to even see this young man as the child that he was. Pundits, commentators, racist, all have catalogued every misdeed that this child has ever committed, and submitted it as evidence as to why he deserved to die. All the while ignoring the less than perfect past of the murderer.
They say he deserved he die, he was nothing more than a thug. They say he had the responsibility to answer George Zimmerman's questions. I'm not sure if they realize that the time where we have to present our papers to travel after dark is over. They say George was in fear of his life. Really? Then why would George get out the car and pursue this dangerous thug in the night. Oh yeah, he had a gun. They say Trayvon was armed with the ground. Okay, sorry that one just kind of makes me shake my head. They say Trayvon broke Zimmerman's nose and showed pictures where there were a few flesh wounds to the back his head. I think he had exactly the wounds a child could inflict when fighting for his life.
White people, Black people, Puerto Rican, an Asian, and every other race under the sun, are well acquainted with the monster that is the surly teenager. This little monster gets in trouble at school, mouths off at teachers, and parents, and some even experiment with drugs, or alcohol. Most grow up and mature to the point where karma visits upon them their own teenagers. Some grow up to be President, does George W. Bush, ring a bell? None are sentenced to death.
Trayvon Martin won't get the chance to grow and mature, and possibly become the pilot of his dreams. He won't marry and get sassed at by his own teenage son or daughter, but maybe if the good people in this country, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, can take a moment and think about your own teenage child, nephew, or niece.
Think about what advice you give them as they walk out the door. Don't talk to strangers, run if someone is following you, fight if you have no other choice. Then think, if on their way home, a stranger stalks them, chases them down, and murders them in cold blood. Think about how it would feel to have to fight 44 days just to get that person charged. Think about a defense attorney digging through your child's short life and digging up every single mistake they ever made and using it to strip away their innocence, reshaping them into a monster deserving of death. Think about how you would feel when the 6 people charged to render justice, only see your child as the monster the defense created, and allows your child's murderer to walk away without any consequences.
If you can put yourself in that moment, for even a second, then you may be able to, not only sympathize with the family of Trayvon Martin, but maybe you will feel the need to fight, so that your child or anyone else's child will never be next.
