#JusticeForTrayvon

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past two weeks, you're probably aware of who Trayvon Martin is, or rather, was. But just in case this information has somehow missed you, here's a brief recap of the tragedy:

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old Black high school student, was walking back to his father's fiance's house in a gated community in Sanford, FL after going to a nearby convenience store to buy Skittles and an iced tea. Trayvon, wearing a hoodie, caught the attention of George Zimmerman, a 28 year-old, self-appointed neighborhood watch captain who called 9-1-1 to report Trayvon as "suspicious" and proceeded to follow the boy against the emergency operator's directions. Within minutes, Trayvon was dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest, inflicted by Zimmerman. Zimmerman, who is 250 lbs, claims that he acted in self-defense and reasonably feared that Trayvon, who was a mere 140 lbs, was going to kill him. He further claims that he had a right to do so under Florida's Stand Your Ground Law. (In short, the law allows for the use of deadly force in a public space when one is in reasonable fear of bodily harm or death). This all took place on February 26, 2012... Zimmerman has yet to be arrested.

Now, to drill in the facts, let's recap again: Zimmerman. 28 years old. SELF-APPOINTED neighborhood watch captain. Acted as the aggressor against an unarmed Black child and murdered him. Hasn't been arrested. A child MURDERER. But as some people urge, this case (or rather non-case) is not a racial issue.

... A blind man could see that it is. Trayvon Martin is dead because he was Black. There, I said it... because it's the truth. Apparently, walking down the street while Black is a crime enough to warrant murder.When is the last time that you've heard of an unarmed white man being brutally beaten within an inch of his life or murdered by cops or an unstable vigilante? When is the last time that you saw a group of white men being harassed by the cops for standing in a public area while socializing? When is the last time you've heard of white men being racially profiled? I, for one, can tell you that I cannot recall because these types of things don't happen to white men. However, Black men? Prime targets. As the sister of an 18 year-old Black male, events such as what occurred in Sanford on that fateful evening hit close to home and weigh heavily on my heart. This could have easily happened to my family and we could be the ones without answers and without justice.

Earlier this week, I had a somewhat heated debate on Facebook with some law school classmates of mine who insisted that this was not a racial issue. While they agreed (for the most part) that Zimmerman should have been arrested, they didn't believe that this was a Black/white/racial issue. "How do we know that Zimmerman followed Trayvon because he was Black? How do you know that this was a racially motivated hate crime?" they said. (I guess they ignored that fact that Zimmerman could be heard referring to Trayvon as "they" and a "f***ing coon" and "suspicious" on the 9-1-1 call). And then it dawned on me. As obvious of a racially motivated hate crime as this seemed to be, people who have never experienced racial stereotyping can't seem to grasp that it actually exists nowadays. Or maybe they just choose to ignore it. My friend Lindsay gave me a great analogy for this. She said, "In my 23 years of life, I've never seen deep snow, like up to my knees, but I know it exists because I've been told and because I've seen pictures." Okay, I forget word-for-word what she said, but her message was along the lines of, they know it exists, but since they have neither seen nor experienced it, they can't actually grasp that it's real.

But sadly, it's still real. This country has come so far, yet sometimes it seems we haven't really gone anywhere. The lives of Black men, women, and children (and other minorities) receive so much less protection from the justice system as do the lives our pale-skinned, light-eyed counterparts, and it's sickening. What's even more sickening is that there are people who actually believe Zimmerman was justified in murdering Trayvon. One girl said to me, "Well look at the statistics. There are more Black men in prison than in college..." I became livid, instantly. Basically, she insinuated that because Black men are "more prone to violence and/or a life of crime" (notice the quotation marks), Zimmerman was at least partly justified in assuming that Trayvon was a suspicious person. There could be no way that a Black male actually LIVED in the gated community! The fact that people think like that and have the nerve to call themselves "educated" is beyond me.

But that would open up an entirely different can of worms and I could go on forever. I say all this to say that stereotyping gets us nowhere. To be the most powerful nation in the world, America has this huge elephant that never seems leaves to room-- race. Being Black doesn't mean that one is a criminal and being white doesn't automatically mean that one is a saint. At the end of the day, we will all have our preconceived notions, but to act on them so far that negatively impact the life of another is shameful. Further, allowing people to violently act on these stereotypes and get away without so much even as a slap on the wrist is downright appalling.

Although the Martin family can never have Trayvon back, I can only pray that justice is served so that the Martin family can finally have some sense of peace.