A gun fires and its echoes are heard far into the distance. A boy’s body drops. He lies there motionless and cold as life drains out of him. Scenes such as these occur all over America and add to the statistics of victims dying at the hands of useless violence. These statistics are created, filed and put away or published for public viewing, but few are actually looked at by regular everyday people. Countless deaths go unnoticed by the general public even though the deaths cause great pain to those closest to the victim.
Now take that same scenario, make the assailant “white” and the victim black, and suddenly it takes on a completely different light. The community starts to clamor. People of all creeds and backgrounds start to stand, and suddenly, under the weight of the uproar, the world seems to shake. This “scenario” is the Trayvon Martin case, and while a wrong is a wrong no matter what, people should start to take a good hard look at themselves before joining the bandwagon.
The first thing to look at is the facts of the case. Upon first hearing about the tragedy, a good number of people assumed Zimmerman was white. This, however, is not the case. Zimmerman is of Hispanic descent. While this detail should not be important at all, many people joined the protests believing this was a hate crime of arguably the most stereotypical and long-standing origins.
It’s very conceivable that the shooting was racially motivated considering the fact that Zimmerman in his neighborhood watch duty had reported several “suspicious” African-Americans in his neighborhood the past. However, it is ignorant and counter-productive to try to gain traction in any sort of movement by acting on the wrong information.
The second thing to mull over is whether the murderer’s race is significant in the first place. Murders happen literally every day. Countless phrases extol the fleeting quality of life. In fact, in Detroit alone, there were at least 346 murders last year. Despite that, those people are overlooked; their deaths never made the headlines. Even though many of them were just as presumably innocent, Trayvon Martin was chosen to be the martyr. And the reason for this goes back to the untrue belief that Zimmerman was white. Yes, many of the people rallying behind the Trayveon banner are racially motivated just like the man they’re so ready to hate.
At the same time, black kids are killing other black kids, and their memory is reduced to a number and a name in the obituaries. If all of those deaths received the same backlash, outrage and intensity, the world could become a much better place.
Zimmerman was ignorant. He was unable to realize that threats shouldn’t be defined by their outside appearance. This ignorance is something that should be fought, and has been fought for years. Unfortunately, ignorance cannot be fought with more ignorance; all it does is fan the flame.