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gwydionI am someone who's been followed at night by creepy white men who mean me harm. I've been trailed for a couple miles in the dark by a guy who kept trying to get into my blind spot. (I kept adjusting my position to keep my eye on him. We got to a populated area, and he gave up and peeled off). I have been followed by packs of scary ass white men screaming at me. I've been chased by packs of construction workers. I've been followed by men in cars when I was on foot, both lone men and packs. I've had a guy try to grab me into his car in broad daylight on my way to work. (It was rush hour and I was deliberately walking on the sidewalk opposite to the direction of traffic. I sped up, and he couldn't chase me properly because the cars behind were honking).
Zimmerman's attorney told the lie that if George Zimmerman was black, he wouldn't have been arrested. I call bullshit. If he'd been black, he'd have been arrested on the spot; he'd have been drug tested; the police would have investigated properly instead of just letting him go. If George Zimmerman were black, it wouldn't have taken massive protests to get even a half assed response from authorities to the murder.
The question we should be asking is what would have happened if Trayvon Martin was a white girl. Picture the set up again: a white teenaged girl in sweatshirt and jeans is walking home from the store with skittles and tea. A grown ass man is following her in his car. She gets scared and cuts away to a foot path. The man is armed with a gun and gets out and follows her on foot. Think how fucking terrified she would be. Now imagine that there is a scuffle and he shoots the unarmed 17 year-old girl. Would there even be a question that she had a right and a need to defend herself and the man who stalked and killed her is a dangerous offender? No, of course their wouldn't.
I am white, but I've walked alone in the dark with men and groups of men following me, and I think it must have been fucking terrifying for Trayvon Martin. I was someone who studied martial arts seriously and was prepared to go down fighting and I am pretty sure that being white if I had been murdered in Annapolis, Corvallis, Eugene, or Philadelphia, they'd have arrested the person who stalked and killed me, investigated the crime, and made a serious effort to put my murderer away no matter how hard I defended myself as an unarmed person. Similarly, there was a guy in my dorm at my second college who got a lot of street harassment and who had been violently assaulted by frat boys previously. I'm pretty fucking sure that those of us who took turns escorting him places at night wold have been treated as people acting in self defense if we'd had to fight off more assailants trying to hurt him.
Part of the dehuminizing of African American men is the way we as a society disregard Trayvon Martin's right to be afraid. Trayvon's right to defend himself from a dangerous predator following him home at night is valued less than the fear a man with a gun in a car felt on seeing a teenager walking him from a store with candy. It is clear to me, as someone who's both walked in the dark with predators following and who's driven a car at night, the George Zimmerman posed and existential threat to the boy he murdered, whereas an unarmed pedestrian poses zero threat to a man in a car who can just drive the fuck away.
Trayvon Martin was a human being who had a right to fear the man who murdered him. Trayvon Martin was a human being who had the right to defend himself. Trayvon Martin was a citizen who deserved law enforcement taking his murder seriously and the same quality of investigation and prosecution of his murder that a white classmate would have had. Trayvon Martin both alive and dead deserved equal treatment under the law as any other citizen. Trayvon Martin was a human being with feelings and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit f happiness. The fact that he (and so, so many others) was denied all these things that should be everyone's birth right here in the 21st century is a travesty and an indictment of our whole system.
I am not Trayvon, but I empathize with him. I am not Trayvon Martin's mother, but I've seen a murdered love tried in the press as if he were the criminal and not his murderer, and I sure as hell empathize with her. I honestly don't understand how their can be so much empathy for a man who stalked and killed an innocent child and none for the murdered child's pain and fear. It seems to me that we really need to take a good hard look at the kind of racism that makes it possible for people to argue that it's okay to get out of your car and track down and shoot people whether it's Trayvon or that boy in the back of the SUV listening to music or hundreds of other unarmed teenagers that have been killed since Trayvon on the grounds that them minding their own existence is so terrifying that pre-emptively shooting them to death counts as self defense.
Zimmerman's attorney told the lie that if George Zimmerman was black, he wouldn't have been arrested. I call bullshit. If he'd been black, he'd have been arrested on the spot; he'd have been drug tested; the police would have investigated properly instead of just letting him go. If George Zimmerman were black, it wouldn't have taken massive protests to get even a half assed response from authorities to the murder.
The question we should be asking is what would have happened if Trayvon Martin was a white girl. Picture the set up again: a white teenaged girl in sweatshirt and jeans is walking home from the store with skittles and tea. A grown ass man is following her in his car. She gets scared and cuts away to a foot path. The man is armed with a gun and gets out and follows her on foot. Think how fucking terrified she would be. Now imagine that there is a scuffle and he shoots the unarmed 17 year-old girl. Would there even be a question that she had a right and a need to defend herself and the man who stalked and killed her is a dangerous offender? No, of course their wouldn't.
I am white, but I've walked alone in the dark with men and groups of men following me, and I think it must have been fucking terrifying for Trayvon Martin. I was someone who studied martial arts seriously and was prepared to go down fighting and I am pretty sure that being white if I had been murdered in Annapolis, Corvallis, Eugene, or Philadelphia, they'd have arrested the person who stalked and killed me, investigated the crime, and made a serious effort to put my murderer away no matter how hard I defended myself as an unarmed person. Similarly, there was a guy in my dorm at my second college who got a lot of street harassment and who had been violently assaulted by frat boys previously. I'm pretty fucking sure that those of us who took turns escorting him places at night wold have been treated as people acting in self defense if we'd had to fight off more assailants trying to hurt him.
Part of the dehuminizing of African American men is the way we as a society disregard Trayvon Martin's right to be afraid. Trayvon's right to defend himself from a dangerous predator following him home at night is valued less than the fear a man with a gun in a car felt on seeing a teenager walking him from a store with candy. It is clear to me, as someone who's both walked in the dark with predators following and who's driven a car at night, the George Zimmerman posed and existential threat to the boy he murdered, whereas an unarmed pedestrian poses zero threat to a man in a car who can just drive the fuck away.
Trayvon Martin was a human being who had a right to fear the man who murdered him. Trayvon Martin was a human being who had the right to defend himself. Trayvon Martin was a citizen who deserved law enforcement taking his murder seriously and the same quality of investigation and prosecution of his murder that a white classmate would have had. Trayvon Martin both alive and dead deserved equal treatment under the law as any other citizen. Trayvon Martin was a human being with feelings and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit f happiness. The fact that he (and so, so many others) was denied all these things that should be everyone's birth right here in the 21st century is a travesty and an indictment of our whole system.
I am not Trayvon, but I empathize with him. I am not Trayvon Martin's mother, but I've seen a murdered love tried in the press as if he were the criminal and not his murderer, and I sure as hell empathize with her. I honestly don't understand how their can be so much empathy for a man who stalked and killed an innocent child and none for the murdered child's pain and fear. It seems to me that we really need to take a good hard look at the kind of racism that makes it possible for people to argue that it's okay to get out of your car and track down and shoot people whether it's Trayvon or that boy in the back of the SUV listening to music or hundreds of other unarmed teenagers that have been killed since Trayvon on the grounds that them minding their own existence is so terrifying that pre-emptively shooting them to death counts as self defense.
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Date: 2013-07-25 12:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-25 12:39 am (UTC)