Vigilante Tragedy
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Original image found at Business Insider
Last Saturday night’s verdict in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case was a major let down. A fucking disappointment.
The idea that an armed neighborhood watchman, who was told by the 911 operator to “not follow him, wait for the police to respond” on top of spewing racist comments [that were recorded during the call] about this 17-year-old kid he was following, and have a jury of his peers decide his was “NOT GUILTY” makes me wonder what kind of state we are in as a society where guns are king and humanity is brushed aside like it’s a useless ideal.
I’ve made no apologies for my personal stance on guns and the ridiculous over-the-top love of guns that we have embraced here in this country. And where a 17-year-old kid, walking back to where he was staying, armed with a package of Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea, is now dead and his killer gets to walk free.
We may never know what exact series of altercations that went on between Mr. Zimmerman and Trayvon since one is dead and the other will most likely never tell anyone the details [outside of law enforcement questioning, since he never took the stand in his case].
I’m no legal expert and don’t claim to be one, so I won’t pontificate the legal details. The verdict is done and regardless how much some of us disagree with it, it’s the legal process that was followed in the state of Florida.
Zimmerman’s life is forever altered, given the public outrage of the verdict. I do not condone, nor support any retaliation against him, regardless how I feel about his actions that killed Trayvon. This ‘eye for eye’ bullshit doesn’t follow the humanity clause of life. Trying to kill or injure him doesn’t right the wrong. It does nothing but create more violence in our society.
Social Media Aftermath
In all of the social media comments I’ve read after the verdict was announced, I noticed that those who are defenders of firearm ownership without regulation, rarely spoke of Trayvon’s loss and focused more on how 93% of all blacks kill their own race, trying to spin this into some type of “this isn’t about race” debate, for fear of another push to regulate guns.
People… killing another human being – regardless if it’s white on white, black on black or some other mix, is a tragedy. Turning this into a race issue on either side has it’s pitfalls. Yes, Zimmerman spoke of the black kid he was following with racist comments and those cannot be ignored. But to trounce up all of the percentages and statistics like your Facebook timeline has been previously filled with concern over blacks killing their own is hypocritical and misguided.
I am in agreement that the media overhyped this like they missed the ratings they enjoyed in the 90’s during the OJ Simpson trial. I didn’t follow this case at every update because I don’t care to give the mainstream media their desired viewership ratings.
I treat what happened as a sadness that a young, unarmed individual, regardless of how he defended himself against an armed watchman, is gone and it could have been prevented if that armed watchman would have used more common sense and not reacted as he did. In other words, embraced humanity before brandishing his firearm.
I want to see less violence and less selfish motives [ie; the ‘kill or be killed’ mentality] to reduce these types of killings. But in order to do that, we need to focus more on humanity. I’m not talking some kind of hippie peace thing. I’m talking about using logic and our heads before thinking how to take down someone that we feel is a threat to us. Sure, self defense should be practiced. I’m not discounting that. But the value of human life is one that needs to be embraced more often. Because this life is all we have and we need more 17 year olds to become 80 year olds.
Links
Here are two other blog posts that opine on the Zimmerman verdict from Dave2 and Faiqa – bloggers I highly respect.
This verdict just blew my mind. How the prosecution couldn’t prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was just bloody baffling. Sad day. Particularly for Trayvon Martin’s family.
The prosecution didn’t have a very good case. They could have, but they bumbled it. I feel for his family.
As I commented on Blography. When I see cases where someone who is clearly guilty get acquitted, I blame the prosecution for not putting forward a good enough case. If the defense get their client off, then fair dues, they played a good game. However, I actually think the only defense they had was that Trayvon was black, and that was enough to give credibility to Zimmerman’s ludicrous defense. An unsettling turn of events to say the least.
Exactly. I wish they would have got together a better case.