Oh Florida, as much as I love your beaches and your weather, you've made me sick. Though not as much as all the people saying George Zimmerman should have never been brought to trial in the first place. I mean, women who kill their abusive husbands -even though their husbands regularly beat and threaten to kill them - are brought to trial regularly. And go to prison.
(Want proof? Look at this NPR story. Or this long explanation from the University of Michigan. Or this synopsis from CBS. Or learn about the African-American woman who got 20 years for firing a WARNING SHOT around her abusive husband. In Florida.)
George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. Obviously, the reasons and justifications have been debated ad nauseum, but I think we can all agree that if women whose husbands beat them and terrorize them and stalk them for years aren't allowed to kill their husbands without going to trial, then George shouldn't get to kill Trayvon without a trial. And it breaks my heart that so many women, whose husbands promised to terrorize them forever, or who threatened to kill them and their children, are in jail for murder but George Zimmerman, who killed a kid walking through his neighborhood, walks free.
Trayvon Martin was not in George Zimmerman's yard. George Zimmerman was the one who followed Trayvon with a weapon, not the other way around. To me, this is the crux of the argument for manslaughter. If George Zimmerman had left his gun in his truck, or gone back to his truck, none of this would have happened.
People who drive drunk and kill someone get convicted of manslaughter, or something close to it. You can bet they didn't start out their nights hoping to hit someone with their car. I don't know if we can say the same thing for George, patrolling his neighborhood with a gun and all. I'm not saying he set out to kill someone, exactly, but I think he was a lot more prepared to do it than any drunk driver.
I heard/read some people say that it wasn't their business to talk about the trial or the crime, because they aren't African-American. As if only people of color should be outraged by this whole mess. As if white people could not possibly care what happened to an African-American teenager; as if it couldn't happen to their kid, it wasn't their problem.
To them I say, "Fuck you."
First of all, just because I'm white, it doesn't mean there aren't teenagers of color that I care about, or have cared about. So yeah, this kid could have been someone I knew, could have been someone I cared about. That makes it my business.
Second of all, injustice is injustice - it upsets me, no matter whether the victim looks like me or not. What happened here was wrong on so many levels - and would have been wrong no matter what color anyone in the situation was.
Third of all, you have no idea what the future holds. What if your kid is wearing a hoodie and someone thinks s/he's a troublemaker? What if someone things you don't belong in her neighborhood? What if your grandchild is of mixed race? Don't you want the world to be a better place, just in case?
This is worth 11 minutes.
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