AN UNFORTUNATE TEACHABLE MOMENT

We’ve been astounded by the trial and verdict in the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman case.  We’ve been watching, listening and reading.  We suspect that many of you, your children and great-grandchildren have also been following or exposed to this case.  The children are probably sensing our outrage and discomfort, and are not sure how to process this all.

We don’t have the answers, but have found a couple of VERY POWERFUL responses that we want to share.  We would love to know how you, your friends, your children, are discussing this with the children in their lives. 

There are NO easy ways to tell children that racial bias and profiling still exist in this country.  What happened to “liberty and justice for all”?

June & Laurie

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A year and a half ago I was one of the over two million people who signed a Change.org petition posted by two parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. "Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin" it read. Through my tears, I signed that petition and shared it with everyone I knew.

The very idea that an unarmed black teenager who was watching the NBA All Star Game with his family could decide to run over to the local 7-11 and be murdered on the way home by a neighborhood watch captain—and that the person who shot him, George Zimmerman, would not be arrested - enraged me.  After hearing the 911 call,  I was astounded that Zimmerman had the nerve to claim self defense and that the police went along with it and let Zimmerman go free.

Did not the black teenager have the liberty to walk where he saw fit without being accosted by a threatening stranger? Didn't that black teenager deserve the same justice that would surely have been served if he'd been a white 17-year-old carrying Skittles and a can of iced tea?

As damning as it was for it to take 44 days for Zimmerman to be arrested, there was a part of my heart that wasn't completely surprised. When you grow up black in America, you've been to this rodeo before.

Maybe you know about the Red Summer of 1919. Perhaps you heard Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" playing on your grandmother's record player or heard your mother speaking in sorrowful, hushed tones about Emmett Till, about the Little Rock Nine, the Birmingham church bombings--about all the stories of the civil rights movement. Or maybe you came home one night and saw a video of Rodney King being beaten on your evening news. You might've seen Los Angeles burn after the police officers who broke King's body with their nightsticks walked free. Maybe you lived in New York City when Amadou Diallo was murdered, or perhaps you frequented the Fruitvale Station where Oscar Grant was shot by a transit cop.

You know the local stories that never make the national news. Those are shared when your aunties come over, when you're at church, and when you're at the barber shop or beauty shop, getting your hair done. You see yourself in those stories. You see people you know in those stories. You see your own children in those stories.

I've seen my black male relatives and friends followed around stores, denied jobs, and told apartments are already rented when they're not. I've seen them have to learn the nuances of what to do when they're approached by law enforcement. I've been in the car with them when they get pulled over and questioned for having expired city stickers or license plates, which are not actually expired. Tail lights which are supposedly out when the cops pull you over but then they magically work after they've run your ID.

This past year in sixth grade, my 12-year-old was pegged as the scary black aggressor after he punched a white kid. The kid was always getting in trouble for misbehaving, had a history of harassing my son, calling him racial names and swearing at him, and then made the mistake of pulling my son's shorts down in gym class, which pushed my son over the edge. I sat in a school counselor's office boiling as the white child cried that my son had been intimidating him and that he was scared of him, and oh, my son pulled down this kid's shorts first. The white child's version of what happened was being given credence until I threatened to go to the LAPD and file a hate crime and sexual harassment complaint against the other kid.

"I am Trayvon Martin" isn't just a slogan on a t-shirt for us.

My son, Mr. O, is nearly 5' 2" and this summer I've had to tell him, I don't care if you're going to get bored shopping with me or if you feel better having Superman in your pocket, you can NOT take an action figure you already own into Target because it will probably be assumed that you shoplifted it.

Liberty and justice for all? Liberty and justice becomes at least you get to have an action figure at all. Like every other black person I know, I have no choice but to accept the reality of living in an America that has a dehumanized vision of blackness as part of its foundation. I do myself and my sons a disservice if I refuse to admit that this country is good at facilitating inequality which creates policies, laws, and cultural practices that lead to the subjugation, incarceration, and murder of black males.

I don't have to like the way things are. I can fight against the "system" and work to change it--I tell my sons that the reason they are getting an education is that they can learn to solve the problems in our society, so they're equipped to dismantle this system and replace it with true justice and equality. I tell them that they have to be unwavering advocates for racial unity, the people who are friends with people from all backgrounds--and I'm talking true friendships, not just casual acquaintances. But they also have to learn to function in a society that is sick with racism at its spiritual core, because the alternative is to lose your mind when the racism slaps you in the face with a not guilty verdict.

A dear friend asked me earlier today, "How do you talk to your boys about the verdict?" and yet another wondered, "What conversations can we have with our children about this?"

My son's were out watching Superman with their dad and with friends of theirs when the verdict came in. I texted my husband so he could tell them the verdict on the way home. They'd watched some of the trial with me, and we've had countless conversations about racism in America and what happened to Trayvon Martin.

When you're an adult, an unidentified adult male stalking you in the dark is scary. When you're a kid, it's absolutely terrifying. My sons knew that the adult, Zimmerman, was the aggressor from the very beginning, and so they had an unshakeable conviction that Zimmerman would be found guilty. My sons were easily able to put themselves in Trayvon's shoes.  A jury of six women, who have probably been followed by a scary, stalkerish man at some point in their lives, was not.

As my 12-year-old walked in the house over an hour after the verdict had been read, I hugged him tight, and he whispered to me, "I'm so sorry for Trayvon, mom." I broke down sobbing on his shoulder because as much as I have tried to give him a childhood full of innocence, he has never had the luxury of innocence about race.

No, I don't shield these horrific incidences from my sons because they can't afford to think about the systematic impact of racism only when it's national news. Sure, some of us are busy patting ourselves on the back for electing a black President—in much the same way that some folks must've claimed America's race problem was "fixed" after Mississippi elected its first black Senator in 1870.  But in your post-racial America, part of the ritual of them learning to survive as a black male in America is getting real clear that but for the grace of God, you might be shot by someone like George Zimmerman. My sons have to understand what can happen to them because of other people seeing the world through their "black people are scary" glasses.

Indeed, Zimmerman told the police dispatcher, "These assholes always get away." I can burn all of my sons' hoodies, tell them to dress like they just walked out of an LL Bean catalog, and tell them to only play Vampire Weekend on their iPods, but in Zimmerman's world, and for too many other Americans, my sons are "those assholes" no matter what they do, and it's all because of the color of their skin.

I couldn't sleep last night and my sons couldn't sleep either. "Did that court really let that guy who killed Trayvon go free?" asked my 9-year-old several times. "Yep, it did," I replied. He seemed more shocked, and more deflated, every time I told him yes.

At 1:30 AM, my 12-year-old came out to where I was sitting on the couch and sat on my lap. "Why can't you sleep?" I asked him. "I don't know. Just bothered, I guess," he replied. He's big but I held him and rocked him like he was a little baby till he began to doze off. 

Yes, it makes me feel insane to have to have that conversation about action figures. It makes me feel insane that we've had the "should you run or stand up for yourself in this situation?" conversation. It makes me feel insane to have to explain that when the police are following you, keep your hands out of your pockets and don't dig around in your backpack. It makes me feel insane that I have to tell him the same things my parents told me--you will have to work twice as hard as your white peers because you will always be perceived as a problem, as lazy, as inarticulate, as not the right fit for our organizational culture. And now you need to be afraid of the average person, too. 

But nothing I feel right now can come close to what I know Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin must be feeling, and I know they need more than our collective anger. And so last night through my tears, I signed another petition. This one came from the NAACP asking the Justice Department to open a civil rights case against George Zimmerman.Sign it, but know that there is more to be done. Sixteen months after Trayvon Martin was murdered, the man who shot him is out on the street again with his gun. There is more to be done. 
by Liz Dwyer 
http://www.losangelista.com/2013/07/thank-you-post-racial-america-for.html

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                                                         Trayvon Martin Verdict Illustrates Need to Speak Out About Racial Bias        

By Richard Cohen, President - The following  statement was issued by Richard Cohen, President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, following the verdict in State of Florida v. George Zimmerman:  
"They always get away." These were the words George Zimmerman uttered as he followed and later shot Trayvon Martin -- words that reflected his belief that Trayvon was one of "them," the kind of person about to get away with something.  How ironic these words sound now in light of the jury verdict acquitting Zimmerman. 

Trayvon is dead, and Zimmerman is free.  Who was the one who got away? Can we respect the jury verdict and still conclude that Zimmerman got away with killing Trayvon?  I think so, even if we buy Zimmerman's story that Trayvon attacked him at some point.  After all, who was responsible for initiating the tragic chain of events?  Who was following whom?  Who was carrying a gun?  Who ignored the police urging that he stay in his car?  Who thought that the other was one of "them," someone about to get a away with something?

The jury has spoken, and we can respect its conclusion that the state did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.  But we cannot fail to speak out about the tragedy that occurred in Sanford, Florida, on the night of February 26, 2012.

Was race at the heart of it?  Ask yourself this question:  If Zimmerman had seen a white youth walking in the rain that evening, would he have seen him as one of "them," someone about to get away with something?  

We'll never really know, of course.  But we can seriously doubt it without assuming that Zimmerman is a racist in the conventional sense of the word.
  
Racial bias reverberates in our society like the primordial Big Bang.  Jesse Jackson made the point in a dramatic way when he acknowledged that he feels a sense of relief when the footsteps he hears behind him in the dead of night turn out to belong to white feet.  Social scientists who study our hidden biases make the same point in a more sober way with statistics that demonstrate that we are more likely to associate black people with negative words and imagery than we are white people. It's an association that devalues the humanity of black people, particularly black youth like Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman probably saw race the night of February 26, 2012,  just like so many of us probably would have. Had he not, Trayvon probably would be alive today.

The jury has spoken.  Now, we must speak out against the racial bias that still infects our society and distorts our perception of the world.  And we must do something about it.

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