It's about Trayvon

The Trayvon Martin case is not about race relations in the U.S., the justice system, prejudice, fear, gun laws, neighborhood watch, media bias, Stand Your Ground laws, castle doctrine, Florida, the long-lasting effects of the peculiar institution (slavery), clothing, or what it means to be White Hispanic. It's about Trayvon Martin.

A seventeen year old was killed, on the street near his father's girlfriend's house, while doing nothing wrong. He had some candy and a soft drink.

And maybe (although no one can really know) he could have run away from the gunman. Maybe he could have avoided a physical confrontation and didn't. Maybe he started the confrontation. Maybe he was winning. Maybe he was not about to be nominated for sainthood. But he was doing nothing wrong at the time, and he was followed by an armed man and shot dead.

So... it bothers me when people jump on social media and decide that Martin was a "dumb nigger," that the world is better off without him, that we should thank god for the bullet that hit him, and that he shouldn't have had the munchies.

I mean, really? You're celebrating that a kid died, and that his killer went free?

And if there's a levels-of-racism trophy you get for calling an innocent dead kid a dumb nigger, then you don't earn it by nitpicking the case for all the reasons that the killer was justified in doing what he did, but you do get a small plaque. Plaques are currently being engraved for everyone who believes it's okay to kill a black kid walking down the street because...
*said black kid was tall
*said black kid once had a screwdriver
*said black kid once wrote graffiti on a wall
*said black kid had a fake set of gold teeth
*said black kid was seventeen, which is almost an adult!
*said black kid called the killer a "creepy-ass cracker" quietly on the phone to his friend
*etcetera on the dead black kid's actions that the killer could not and did not know about at the time
*911 dispatchers are technicially civilians
*the dispatcher technically said "we don't need you to follow him" rather than "don't follow him."
*yadda yadda on the "technically" "legal" arguments.

A high-quality embroidered badge goes out to everyone who has speculated on what might have happened, because in their imagination it makes some sense, then declared that as absolute truth. This also goes for those who take the killer's word as conclusive evidence, even though it is in the killer's interest to say such things, and no living person in the world can contradict him. Those receiving the badge include anyone who has uttered phrases like "Trayvon attacked him" or "Trayvon was smashing his head on the pavement" or "Trayvon reached for his gun" or "Trayvon said 'you're gonna die, motherfucker.'" If you feel you have been overlooked for inclusion in the embroidered badge level, please feel free to alert us as to which "facts" you made up from whole cloth or believed simply because the murderer said them.

A hand-signed paper certificate with a logo of a broken cookie will be awarded to anyone who fails to express empathy with the deceased's family because "that's the way the cookie crumbles." "Well," goes this line of thinking, "Zimmerman killed him, and he probably shouldn't have, but...
*after all, they can't prove he wasn't scared for his life BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
*after all, he had a concealed carry permit
*after all, he owned his gun legally
*after all, under Florida's laws, he didn't have to retreat from a conflict
*etcetera on the they-couldn't-convict-him-because Florida's laws are ass-backwards."

And finally, because there are simply too many people to thank for their apathy, there will be several pages in the program listing the names of those who say "who cares?" "Why is this getting so much attention?" or "We'll never know what happened, so let's let it go" or any version of "we didn't hear what the jury heard, so we have to trust that they made the right decision." Your name will have a star next to it if you were one of the people who expressed "outrage" at the Casey Anthony verdict, despite the fact that it was far less clear-cut that she murdered her child (no one disputes that Zimmerman fatally shot Martin). (Full disclosure: I totally think that Anthony did it, and I'm pretty pissed that she got off.)

Please collect your trophies, badges, certificates, and programs on the way out. Don't let the door hit you in the ass.


Coming up next time... It's NOT about Trayvon, and it IS about race relations, the justice system, etc. (What, are you surprised? As Whitman said, ""Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)