Demonstrators in a Trayvon Martin rally hold Skittles and iced tea, items the teenager was holding the day he was killed.
Racial stereotypes are socially embedded in us, and are often times impossible to escape. Even those with the utmost cultural tolerance are still subject to bouts of racism, however minor or unintentional. In the shadows of our refusal to acknowledge this brand of stock racism, tragedies like the murder of Trayvon Martin occur and shake the core of a community and a nation. Not until our society learns to think in non-racial terms will senseless murders like this cease—and the prospect of such a happening is frighteningly dim.
We've heard about it in the news for nearly a month now. Trayvon Martin, 17 and black, was shot by 28-year-old George Zimmerman while walking through a Sanford, Fla. neighborhood where Zimmerman served as some sort of neighborhood watch leader. Zimmerman claims it was in self-defense and is protected by the state's Stand Your Ground law. Martin was armed only with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea. While many claim that Martin was targeted because of his race, and portray Zimmerman as a trigger-happy racist, Zimmerman's family is eager to point out that he is a minority himself with several black family members. The question is not whether Zimmerman is a racist, because collectively, as a society, we are all racists. The question is whether a murky, ambiguous gun law like the one in place in Florida (and several other states) serves any purpose other than to provide an alibi to a hasty shooter, who in this case, was quite likely motivated by the color of Martin's skin.
In Zimmerman's case, the fact that he has black family members does not make him less likely to function according to race-based judgments. He saw a black man in his neighborhood that he did not recognize, and was moved by sheer outrage to pursue this boy—against the wishes of the 911 dispatcher he telephoned. Society has painted the black man as dangerous, and this image has become the foundation for all of our interactions around the black male body. It is uncertain whether Zimmerman truly acted in self-defense, but the fact remains clear that no act of self-defense would have been necessary had Zimmerman obeyed the directions of police. Let's take a moment to consider what might have happened if Zimmerman stayed in his car. The police would have arrived to the scene, and perhaps located Martin somewhere in the neighborhood. They would have stopped and questioned him—something someone like Trayvon is probably no stranger to. Simply being himself in a reasonably nice neighborhood would have likely been enough to get stopped by police, whether Zimmerman had phoned 911 or not. This is a privilege that whites and other non-Blacks do not often realize or acknowledge: the ability to go places without being asked "What are you doing here?", as Zimmerman had asked Martin. Did it really matter to Zimmerman what Martin was doing there, or was Zimmerman operating on the bigoted logic that any unknown black male intends harm?
In Southern Prince George's County, where I grew up, I'd always been the minority in predominately African-American neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and more. My black friends were often an unfair target for hardened, jaded police officers of the area. Vicariously experiencing these difficulties with them, I grew to sympathize with the plight of simply being black, even when 99% of the people around them shared the same skin tone. Once, in a car with three of my friends (all of whom were black), we were stopped and searched in the parking lot of a mall in my neighborhood. Everyone was frisked except for me. One of the police officers, who was also black, methodically questioned each one of my friends until he got to me, and asked "What are YOU doing around these parts?" I wanted to scream at him that I'd lived in "those parts" my entire life, but instead I offered some less forceful comment about his racial stereotyping, which he proceeded to deny. Race precedes almost every human interaction. In our attempts to categorize and understand, we impose definitions and labels onto one another that aren't always helpful.
The way George Zimmerman has been portrayed in the media may not be absolutely correct. In fact, I'm certain that select details have been either omitted or emphasized in order to create the most ideal story for newspapers and other media outlets. However, at the root of it all, Zimmerman murdered an unarmed teenager, and remains protected by an ignorant, misguided law. Of course the issue sheds light on racial tension, but that tension is one of the main ingredients for the foundation of American society. We cannot think or see "racelessly." Zimmerman likely saw Martin as just another black, teenage delinquent looking to commit petty crime. As long as there is race, there will be racism. And as long as society holds dear its perverse need for prejudice, more innocent lives will be compromised.
