Editorial
St. Trayvon Martin
To beatify someone – in the Catholic Church sense – is to recognize that they need to go to heaven so that they can intercede to God on the behalf of those who pray their name.
After his interlocutor and executioner was acquitted, Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old black kid from Florida was on the lips of many a black person. That George Zimmerman was acquitted was not a surprise. The case was bungled up from Day 1.
And in a classic case of ‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied,’ the perversion of the law as it regards African Americans bubbled up to the surface. For example, the medical examiner could not even remember doing an autopsy on Trayvon Martin, despite the fact that he had his notes right there with him.
Could it be that he does so many autopsies on black kids that have been shot through the heart?
But God bless Trayvon Martin’s broken heart, we all say today.
As an all-male, all-black and all-immigrant editorial board, we have no choice but to empathize with the Martin Family. We are also outraged because each one of us has to grapple with elements of racial profiling in this North America we live in.
Some of us have been placed in situations where something was going to go wrong – and it has, with varying degrees of consequence. Either way, what emerges is that we all relate to Trayvon Martin. We can all feel that bullet rip through our system just as we can all feel the burden those 6 white women felt as jurors on Florida vs. George Zimmerman.
And as to his beatification, even if Trayvon Martin is not necessarily the panacea for today’s race related elements, the fact is that there’s progress – another down payment, excuse the pun – in terms of social capital towards racial equality.
Of course, we sneer at the use of the ‘equality’ here. We know that as long as the American system continues to exist the way it does, things will be slow to change. It is the system that failed Trayvon Martin. It is the system that allowed someone to bring a loaded weapon to an altercation with a kid. It is the system that presented young black males as threatening – and it is the system that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution to demonstrate, beyond reasonable doubt, that George Zimmerman felt threatened enough to use his gun on poor Trayvon Martin’s heart.
In this, the big old system proved fair and just. The 6 jurors did their job and now, they can go back to living their American dream. Bless their hearts.
Nonetheless, Trayvon Martin is still dead. What does a death in the black community mean? After all, black kids are killing each other each and every day. What is another one to us? After all, this black kid “did drugs”, “he had a gun”, “he wanted to be a gangster”. “He was bad”. What are we to do? Surely, he cannot be like those beautiful angels shot to death in a school in Connecticut.
No. This is different. This was a 17 year old boy who wore a hoodie and was “threatening”. What are we to do as a society but to close our books and go home for the weekend?
And to this, we say No. Enough. We will not go quietly into the night. We must yell out in anguish until we pass out of breath. We must say his name over and over and over again until God hears us. We must call out for justice – not against George Zimmerman – but for the system. That evil system.
The Habari Network Editorial Board,
