Character, colour and a loaded handgun

Let’s talk about Trayvon Martinand George Zimmerman

Last week I wrote about beauty and how our reasons for profiling the desirability of another human being are based on appearance. Our reasons for profiling the character of another human being are also based on appearance. Not their beauty but their colour.

Can we talk about Trayvon Martin? Most people are, anyway.

Given the legal parameters of the trial of the man who shot him, prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that George Zimmerman was not defending himself when he shot Martin.

In the scuffle that night, Martin may have had a bag of Skittles but George had a gun and the right to use it under the law.

But what seems rational and reasonable is to rewind the tape to what sadly first drew these men together. Why was Martin deemed suspicious without evidence?

Martin was in a gated community with some candy and an iced tea. But in Zimmerman’s mind and in his call to a police dispatcher, Martin was one of those “... punks” who “... always get away”. (I’m editing out the expletives).

Crimes had been committed in the area and Martin matched the description of a young, black man. Not much of a description of course. But young black men, particularly in the dark of night, are deemed to be potential predators and criminals. They are dangerous, so goes the narrative, and should be watched. Martin’s hoodie further meant that it was reasonable to fear him.

The only reason these two interacted at all was that Zimmer- man felt it was his civic duty to get out of his car to apprehend a teenager who was suspicious by his existence.

Martin resisted. A fight ensued. With one loaded 9mm handgun between the two of them it was no contest. Martin lost the fight and his life.

Everyone from the U.S. president to Martin’s parents asked for calm in the wake of the Florida jury’s verdict. They did so knowing full well the absence of calm, particularly for parents of young black men.

As Charles Blow wrote in the New York Times this week, he has always told his black teenaged boys not to run in public because it might seems suspicious, as if they’d stolen something. According to Zimmerman, Martin looked suspicious in part because he was walking too slowly. At what precise pace, asks Blow, should he tell his boys to walk to avoid suspicion.

In the end, as police stood over the body of a dead teenager, they didn’t ask around the neighbourhood to find out if he belonged to anybody. Labeled a John Doe, Martin went to the morgue.

George, who had just admitted killing someone, was questioned and went home.