Trayvon Martin's death and the not guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman have revived the seemingly never-ending debate over race and the legal double standard.
Charlie Diradour, Chris Dovi, Brittany Tracy
Last Saturdayâs verdict in the Trayvon Martin case -- finding George Zimmerman not guilty of manslaughter or any culpability for the shooting death of Martin -- sparked outrage but in some ways very little surprise. Martin was a black 17 year old shot dead by Zimmerman while walking home from a nearby convenience store where heâd gone for candy and a drink. Zimmerman was a committed member of the neighborhood watch who was, ostensibly also guarding Martinâs familyâs home along with all the other houses in their gated Florida community. Both Martin and Zimmerman, like most of us listening to this broadcast, are Americans. But the Americas each inhabits -- in the case of Martin, inhabited -- are very different. And the virdict reached held very different meanings in those two Americas. African Americans, for the most part reacted with unanimous condemnation of the verdict, seeing it as a further validation of the communal belief that their race is seen through a different legal lens. White Americans were split. Among liberals, the response was embarrassment -- a social media outpouring of apologies to African Americans. And conservative whites took to the cause of Zimmerman as vindication of a man wrongly accused. Talk shows and social media have been alight for weeks, but thankfully the predicted violence in the wake of the verdict has been limited -- mostly peaceful protests. But it in terms of sparking what is really needed -- productive conversation about race and class relations -- and how that post-racial world some people have touted in recent years -- remains in a galaxy far far away. Not to say that the conversation that has occurred has not been meaningful. Nearly everyone had an emotional, visceral reaction to the verdict. But expressing the howâs whyâs and will we everâs of that conversation has never been easy.
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