A Few Really Dumb Things about the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin Trial.

by Staff June 26, 2013 6 Comments News Opinion Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) Forgive me for being out of style, but I’m having a hard time getting into the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial. I feel for the family, and one must fully appreciate the sadness of a young man losing his life under any circumstances. But when the media has called to ask me what I think about the latest developments in the case, I just freeze up and say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I just can’t force myself to find this case to be interesting,, not because Trayvon doesn’t matter, but because the case doesn’t make any sense. I feel incredibly sad for Trayvon Martin and his family, believe me, I do. I don’t know what I’m going to say next week when I see Rev. Jesse Jackson at the annual Rainbow/PUSH convention, because I know everyone is going to be talking about it. Like Rev. Jackson, I am haunted by the spirits of all the dead black boys across America, but it’s difficult for me to put my energy into one case.

Here are a few things about the trial of George Zimmerman that just don’t make much sense to me. At least these are some things I wonder about at night, when no one’s looking or listening:

1) If Trayvon Martin had been killed by a black man, no one would be talking about it. Why do most black people get sensitive about black male homicides only if the killer happens to not be black? I feel deeply for the parents of Trayvon Martin (I need to keep saying this, so I am not accused of being insensitive), but I find it oddly ironic that we can’t have the same degree of sympathy for the parents of the dozens of young black men who are shot and killed over the last few weeks.

Unfortunately, you’ll never hear about their deaths because black-on-black violence is incredibly uninteresting, like the fourth man to go into outer space, or the school shooting that took place right after Sandy Hook – we might hate the George Zimmermans of the world, but the truth is that the enemy is AMONG US. Even worse is that we’ve been trained to embrace music that leads us to sing and dance to the tune of our own inevitable genocide. Yes my friends, that’s just sick.

2) Why are the courts concerned about what kind of person Trayvon Martin was? If one man has a gun and the other has Skittles and Ice Tea, you can’t quite call this a fair fight. It seems that some people believe that if Trayvon Martin fought back after being followed by an over aggressive rent-a-cop, that he somehow deserved to be killed. I don’t care if he smoked weed, had bad grades, got into a fight in school or even punched George Zimmerman in the face, the fact is that he didn’t deserve to die. It is good old fashioned American RACISM that makes us even ask such ignorant and ridiculous questions, like asking a r@pe victim how short her skirt was before she was tackled in a dark alley and assaulted.

3) None of this would have happened if George Zimmerman had never gotten out of his car. The 911 operator clearly told Zimmerman to stop pursuing Trayvon, and he disobeyed the order. Has anyone forgotten about his fact? George Zimmerman caused ALL OF THIS TO HAPPEN. Had he followed instructions and stayed in his car, Trayvon would be alive and he would be a free man. I wonder if this thought has ever crossed his chubby little mind. The truth is that he’s in jail for being an obsessive idiot who doesn’t know how to listen and follow directions. Now, he’s embarrassing his entire family.

4) If Zimmerman is convicted, many of us will be overwhelmed with excitement. But the tough question we must ask ourselves is whether or not anything has changed. Are black boys less likely to die as a result of George Zimmerman being taken off the streets? Has racial inequality been mitigated as a result of this trial? Are black people less poor, better educated, or enjoying a better quality of life with Zimmerman behind bars? I say not. Maybe we should be as critical of ourselves as we are of George Zimmerman, for the solutions to resolving the black male violence issue in our communities go far deeper than this one trial in Florida. That’s why I can’t even watch it.

Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.

6 Comments

jojo says:

July 14, 2013 at 1:57 am

I have a deep feeling Trayvon should have not been killed but we do not know exactly what happened or why they began fighting who really started the fighting. George Zimmerman is a free man man although probably guilty anyway. SIGHS.

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ROBERT says:

June 29, 2013 at 12:20 pm

JUST a notice to my brother’s and sister’s I have been running across some very suspicious article’s posted online concerning the TRAVON trial.LEWROCKWELL.COM posted a article titled [AMERICA WILL SEE IT’S WORST RACE RIOT’S THIS SUMMER];by PAUL HUEBL;the first paragraph say’s[yes; the GEORGE ZIMMERMAN trial here has thousand’s of AFRICAN AMERICAN’S getting ready for some serious bloodletting].ALSO the BLAZE publication is claiming that twitter is buzzing with black’s claiming to be planning attack’s against white’s.THESE article’s seem to me to be planted stories.OUR government need’s a distraction and they are looking for a reason for the full roll out of their police power’s.THE precedent of the BOSTON bombing’s of locking down whole cities have been established.JUST a warning; I hope I am wrong;stay alert;pass the word.

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Edward Funn says:

June 27, 2013 at 10:46 pm

I understand a reluctance to truly get involved in this circus, and I know that we will never truly change anything by putting him in jail. I do not understand why this trail has to be the answer to all those questions you have about black on black crime, death of young black men, equality for all races. It is simply about what should be done when a person of any color is shot, and the only true witness to the crime is the one who has done the shooting. It’s about a police departments response to that crime, and how it should be handled.
In this case, the police just assumed Zimmerman was telling the true, cause they did not do their duty. They didn’t have to arrest Zimmerman, but photos of his injuries should have been taken. His blood should have been tested for anything abnormal. More evidence should have been collected at the time. Because of their lack of professionalism, we now have an even greater sense of despair. Not for justice, but for a true ending to this tragic story.
Last, I am sick of people saying “No one seems to care about black on black crime” Wrong black people care about black on black crime. Al Sharpton has marches and rallies to bring awareness to this all the time. He and other leaders of our community have spoken out against this everyday. Parents of young black children dread and fear for their children lives. The Media, and most black leaders do not speak about it enough. Bill Cosby is a prime example of the lack of leadership. He lost a son to violence years ago, and now blames everything on the community from which he came. Yes, we as black people need to take Inventory of ourselves, but there is a lot more to this issue then, how our culture is. What about the way most police treat our people in big cities especially. Why is the quality of our schools so low, when whites schools close by are so high. Why do they hinder our fathers from being fathers by making it harder for 2 parent family in inner city families, to get assistance. Why do we get shot more by police, and so called “patriots” then other races. We need to fix the image we have of ourselves and ignore the image others have of us. Remember who and where we come from. Stop allow main stream anything to tell us what we need wear, how we need to talk, and what is the meaning of being black. We need all our successful black people to start leaving that ladder down for the rest of us. We need to be our own people not ones who either want to piss white people off, or try to get them to like us. Who care what they want, lets start caring about what we want.

forgive spelling and anything else I was at work when writing this and had to move fast.

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ROBERT says:

June 27, 2013 at 10:43 am

I have also kept my distance from this story;although I do believe this young brother was innocent and did not deserve to be killed;I lost track of how many killing’s of young black’s since the death of TRAYVON.UNTIL we understand what it is that make’s our live’s so cheap in AMERICA this will only continue.WHITE racism is a easy excuse to use;but much of what is transpiring in our community is our failure and our’s alone.SOMEONE should tell us that our black culture is so rotten and repulsive; that it doesn’t belong in a civilized society.I tell young brother’s all the time;you can dress how you want and act how you want;but there are people out there who can’t stand the sight of you and cannot wait to put a bullet in your ass.

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James Davis says:

June 26, 2013 at 11:36 pm

Following is a letter I wrote to my local newspaper. Within it, you may understand why the people of Sanford and many in the world feel the Trayvon
Martin 2nd degree murder trial deserves our attention.

Letter to the Editor: Why I?march
The Sanford Herald
April 20, 2012

Sanford is a city of about 54,000 people and a significant black population of approximately 30 percent, or 16,200. If one percent of the population of Sanford, or 540 people, showed up and protested with me in downtown Sanford, it would change the makeup of the thrust of local government in city hall. Even if one percent of the black population showed up – change would happen. As it has been in the past, change is left to a small group of committed citizens like me who find it necessary to protest for change.

For me, the Trayvon Martin shooting changed the way I saw the government and law enforcement in my community. It was a watershed moment. It was after the shooting that I joined with others asking for the resignation or removal of our chief of police. Many whites see the protests to remove the chief of police as political, however that was never the case with me and other blacks in the Sanford community.

In discussing the shooting with other black men and women – young and old – it became clear it was not completely about race either. When the shooting was discussed, it was usually started off with words like, “That could have been me,” or “That could have been my son or daughter.” They were saying they felt a little less safe in their person than they were prior to the night of Feb. 26, when a child (who had recently turned 17) left his house unarmed to buy a bag of candy and a drink and ended up shot to death by a neighborhood watch activist while trying to get back home.

For these blacks, it was not so much a race issue, although race was involved, or a political issue, although politics would come to be involved, but an issue of physical well being. Blacks always knew there were people like George Zimmerman – who shot and killed Trayvon Martin – in their midst who profiled black young men without cause and even committed acts against them. Blacks had however become comfortable, and maybe overly so in expecting law enforcement would hold these kind of people accountable and arrest them when they committed acts against their persons.

It was when black people saw Chief Bill Lee of the Sanford Police Department stand before the nation, and say not only would law enforcement not be charging Zimmerman with a crime, but they would set him free saying he had a right to kill this child, that we became outraged and afraid for our safety at the same time. The confidence in law enforcement to protect us from zealots like Zimmerman dissolved in that news conference held by Chief Lee on that Monday afternoon. It was at that news conference where you could see the fear and trepidation in the eyes of black people as they felt they were under attack and law enforcement having abandoned them now supported and protected the killer.

It was not for us a question of race but a question of how do we stop this from going any further. This is what caused the outburst of emotion and galvanized blacks to action resulting in the huge protests and marches which followed across the nation. They were afraid for their safety and the safety of their loved ones.

Blacks came to find out they were behind the learning curve in the “Stand Your Ground Law,” and had to get up to speed politically to address that issue. They also knew the issue of getting Zimmerman arrested had to take center stage.

The business however of not allowing the chief of the Sanford Police Department to return to his post falls to local citizen like me. It was this chief who investigated this shooting and advocated for Zimmerman in that afternoon news conference. We now know based on the special prosecutor appointed by Governor Rick Scott that Zimmerman should have been charged with a crime and not set free. The special prosecutor has charged him with 2nd degree murder. Therefore I protest and will continue to protest until this chief is removed.

And I invite my brothers and sisters, both white and black, to stand with me.

James Davis

Sanford, Fla.
The Sanford Herald – Letter to the Editor Why I?march

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Furious says:

June 26, 2013 at 6:42 pm

The reason this drew our attention is because the authorities didn’t want to prosecute the murderer. When a Black person kills someone, including another Black person, the murderer is prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

That’s all we ask for is equal justice. No one, including police, should get away with killing Black people and not answering to the law.

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