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It should come as no
surprise that George Zimmerman goes free for the murder of Trayvon Martin. This
killing of an unarmed Black teenager who was shot by a white adult male is not
new, nor is the lack of punishment if the perpetrator is white and the victim is
not. It is an ongoing tragedy played out many, many times in a country based on
and defined by racism since its inception. The Malcolm X Grass
Roots Movement reports (http://mxgm.org/trayvon-martin-is-all-of-us) “the use of
deadly force against Black people is standard practice in the United States, and
woven into the very fabric of the society” and their research shows that
extrajudicial killings of black people by the police, security guards and
unauthorized vigilantes like Zimmerman take place every 28 hours in the
U.S. The “Stand Your
Ground” laws proliferating around the country are the 21st century
manifestation of American lynch law. The Florida statute conveniently allowed
Zimmerman to claim “self-defense” even though it was he who attacked Martin.
The police originally accepted his story and declined to pursue charges.
Conversely, if Martin had the gun and shot a strolling white young man, there is
no question that he would have been immediately arrested. Were it not for the
tenacious demands of Trayvon Martin’s parents and ensuing national outrage,
Zimmerman would never have been arrested and charged. Everyone knows the
difference is race -- that racism was always the central issue -- yet this
unspoken elephant in the room was not allowed to be named in the trial or
considered pertinent to the prosecution. Instead, the deceased Trayvon Martin
and his key witness were put on trial and discredited. In addition to noting
who does not go to jail for their crimes, we must not forget those who
are jailed because they fight to right injustice like Lynne Stewart,
Mumia abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Oscar Lopez Rivera; or Muslims who are
scapegoated in the name of the “War on Terror” like the Holy Land Five, Yassin
Aref, and Tarek Mehanna; or the victims of the drug wars and mass incarceration
inflicted on the Black and Latino youth population. This case and the
millions of other examples of racial injustice must not be forgotten. The Obama
administration announced a review of this case which may lead to the filing of
federal charges. The NAACP has initiated a petition demanding the Justice
Department file civil rights charges against George Zimmerman (www.naacp.org). There must be unrelenting
demands upon the president and attorney general to secure justice for Trayvon
Martin and to take action in the hundreds of other extrajudicial killings of
unknown black people which took place in the past year. Regardless of justice
department action in this case, the Obama administration must not be allowed to
claim innocence when it routinely kills people, including children, all over the
world. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a teenager like Trayvon Martin. This young
American citizen was killed by our government’s extrajudicial drone murder in
Yemen as a direct result of Obama administration policy. We should advocate for
the elimination of America’s war of terror, all racist and unjust laws, mass
incarceration, and the torture of solitary confinement. But most importantly,
we must take to the streets and build a mass movement to protest this gross
miscarriage of justice and all racist laws and practices endemic to the
“American way of life”.
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