In these troubled times, few things are guaranteed to spark controversy in this country like those thought to be motivated by race. Far removed from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a world where people are judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin, we live in a world where we are expected to walk on egg-shells for fear of offending someone, even over the most innocent of words. We are not united by our differences, but split apart by them, and we are expected to categorize and align ourselves by broad, arbitrary categories, with skin color—the most meaningless of human characteristics—being the most divisive. We are always on the lookout for racial motivations. Looking out for racist motivations, looking out to not seem racist. Too large a portion of the votes in our last two presidential elections were motivated by racial pressures, rather than by questions of qualifications or his stance on issues. And heaven help you if you commit a crime against a minority, because that will make you a racist for sure.
On February 26th, 2012, a young man named Trayvon Martin, an African-American, was killed in a scuffle with neighborhood watch Captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman, a Latino man, claimed he had spotted Martin acting suspiciously and called the police before getting out of his car (against the dispatcher’s advice) to confront Martin. Official reports say that Martin ran away, only to double back and ambush Zimmerman, slamming his head into the concrete and pummeling him. Fearful of his life and his pleas for help being ignored by witnesses, Zimmerman pulled out a hand gun and shot Martin at point blank range, killing Martin.
This was the official report stated by Stanford police, and Zimmerman claimed self-defense on grounds of Florida’s Stand Your Ground statute, which allows the use of deadly force to defend oneself from an attacker. Almost immediately, the mass media jumped on the killing as racially motivated, with critics accusing Zimmerman of everything from profiling Martin as a criminal for being a black boy in a hoody at night, to deliberately instigating the attack to kill him. When thousands of protestor began to gather in opposition to Zimmerman’s release, he was arrested and charged with second degree murder.
Court proceedings for either side cannot be called anything but farcical. Hiding or tampering with evidence. Blocking insinuations against Martin’s character, but allowing such attacks on Zimmerman. Zimmerman and his wife lying about the state of their finances in order to post bail, while Martin’s parents tried to block anyone from seeing his emails or social media information in an effort to keep his image spotless. Media and internet controversy became so heated that the identity of the jurors was kept hidden so as to protect them from reprisals from either side, and their names remain hidden to this day. On July 13th, 2013, Zimmerman was cleared of all charges and released, to much public outcry.
The disgraceful way in which the mass media handled the affair has made the question of whether Zimmerman truly acted in defense or not, or if Martin is actually a murder victim, almost irrelevant. Looking back on their personal history, it’s clear that neither’s record was spotless. Aside from the obvious problem of neighborhood watch attempting to confront a suspect directly, after being ordered by police dispatch to keep his distance, Zimmerman’s record reveals several close encounters with the police involving domestic violence and striking an undercover officer. Likewise, Martin was under a ten day suspension from school for drug possession when he was killed.
However, the news seems to like having a clear cut good guy and bad guy, and Martin was never shown on the news with his most recent photos, preferring photos from middle school while appearing sweet and innocent, and without making gang signs. And despite being Latino—and to see him, very obviously Latino—Zimmerman was constantly reported by the news as being white, and altering the lighting of his mug-shot so that he would appear as such, and playing down or denying Zimmerman’s injuries. All so that the liberal-dominated media could play up the story of a racist white man murdering a defenseless black boy for no provocation. In one especially egregious instance, NBC went so far so to cut out a large portion of Zimmerman’s conversation with the 9-1-1 dispatcher to make it seem as if Zimmerman was saying that Martin looked like he was up to no good because he was black.
This is a disturbing trend in modern media outlets, the way in which they almost glorify in racial tension. But only in what has been determined to be the “politically correct,” manner. That is, if it’s white on a minority. If a black man kills a white man, or an Asian man kills another Asian man, then it’s just murder. If a black cop is forced to gun down a man in the line of duty, then it’s something unfortunate. But if a white man kills a black man for any reason, then it becomes a travesty. Then it becomes an act of hatred, further proof that America is an oppressive, racist society.
The news seems to thrive on these sorts of controversies, but neglecting to give equal weight to their opposite number, as with the Kansas City teenager who was set on fire by two black boys for being white, which did not receive even a fraction of the media attention that the Treyvon Martin killing did. And the fact that this brutal attack took place a matter of days after Martin’s murder, or that it was in reaction to the killing, was often ignored. In fact, at least one online news article took pains to make it known that the victim’s mother thought the attack on her son “didn’t compare,” to Martin. True, the boy survived—with 1st degree burns all over his body, and it’s unfair to even suggest that the two attacks can’t be compared, and despicable to draw attention away from this tragedy in favor of a “more controversial,” one within its own column. This attack was every bit the act of racist hatred as a Ku Klux Klan lynching, or what Treyvon Martin’s killing may have been, and treating one racially-spurred tragedy over another merely because of the victim’s skin color paints a dark picture of America’s priorities.
Social media was no less help in muddying the issues, largely feeding off of the flanderized portrayals of the media. In fact, social media is partly to blame for the controversy growing so out of hand, as its instantaneous nature allows rumors and speculations to spread and fester far faster than facts can circulate. Twitter in particular became a hotbed of anger, all throughout the court proceedings.
Comments box discussions on news sites frequently break down into flame wars very quickly, and in most cases each side is as firmly entrenched in the myth of a blameless party as the media is. Few attempt to find a balanced view of events, and are content to sit and fester in the hatred these types of events spawn, and the truth gets lost in the blame and the anger. At this point, the only things we know for certain is that young man lost his life unnecessarily, and the rift between black man and white man has been driven further open.
True equality means treating every tragedy with equal concern, with equal outrage. Racially-motivated offenses against one’s fellow man should be treated with equal condemnation, not some sensationalist agenda, or to repaint hatred into a more acceptable form. Only by letting go of the illusion of race can we truly be equal.
Videos
Reaction to ZImmerman’s release
Trayvon Martin original 911 audio
Trayvon Martin protesters block Times Square
Sources
– Wikipedia: State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman
– Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Courts: Zimmerman trial information
– CodeSwitch: The George Zimmerman Trial; One Year Later
– Daily News: Teenagers pour gasoline on boy…set him on fire
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