The Justice System Works? Thoughts on Trayvon Martin

My blog is generally of a spiritual nature. But I felt like I had to put in my two cents about Trayvon Martin.  

Disclaimer: It's legitimately my two cents. A lot of people will disagree with me and that's fine. Some might agree with me, and I don't really care about that either. This is not about changing minds or educating someone. I'm just getting my feelings out there. I tried to think of ways to tie it in to the biblical principles for which I stand...like Martin Luther King did. And I came up empty. Please feel free to leave me some verses for encouragement.

I often marvel at Dr. King because he preached a message of love, forgiveness and turning the other cheek in a time when it was obvious that our justice system was broken. That was 50+ years ago. And now, in the wake of this case, many are asking us to respect the justice system and say that the verdict we received is an example of a healthy justice system at work, but I have to wonder:

When did it start working?

It didn't work when Emmitt Till's murderers were acquitted. They were acquitted and 1 year later made a confession in Look magazine. Emmitt Till's crime? He whistled at a white woman while buying candy at the grocery store. They were paid $4,000 by the magazine; profiting cheaply off of the murder of a 14 year old boy who was invaluable to his mother.

We no longer live in the same world that Emmitt Till was murdered in. I understand and believe that.  But I wondered if we're glimpsing it. Maybe next year George Zimmerman will confess to his crime, and get paid something greater than the $30,000 a month he's been making for the past two years (profiting handsomely if I must say so). Or maybe he didn't commit a crime and that money is restitution for his pain and suffering at being wrongly accused. I will leave room for that. Perhaps he really acted in self-defense. The justice system says the killing of Trayvon Martin was justified. However, something worries me...

There's no lesson. There's no advice.

Trayvon Martin didn't know George Zimmerman even existed. He didn't target that man, he didn't follow that man. Trayvon wasn't a gangbanger. He wasn't a robber. He wasn't a rapist. He wasn't even in the wrong place at the wrong time (as this "place" is often in the path of a stray bullet, at a night club, on the sidelines of a street fight, etc., etc.). Rather, he simply wanted some candy, much like Emmitt Till did. Perhaps candy is the lesson? Don't eat it. It rots your teeth and it might get you killed. Or maybe it's similar to the lesson society teaches young women: don't walk alone at night. For us women, we're told not to make ourselves easy prey to depraved men who might rape and murder us. Likewise, is the answer is to tell black youths: don't go outside at night, because someone might be afraid of you? That person might follow you, and engage you in first a verbal, then physical altercation. Suddenly, the answer hits me and I think: in the event of the aforementioned, Don't fight back. If you fight back, they can kill you with impunity. If you don't fight back...maybe they'll stop. Or, if you don't fight back, and they still kill you, there is a chance you'll get justice.

Don't fight back.

Sure, it backtracks us more than 50 years to a time when we stepped off the sidewalk so as not to be in the way of white people. "Don't fight back" speaks to a time when we willingly sat in the back of the bus. "Don't fight back" speaks to a time when we used separate bathrooms because white people were afraid of our germs. "Don't fight back" speaks to consented "learning" in segregated elementary schools (like the one that my own mother attended).  "Don't fight back" was the underbelly of the laws that prevented black people from coming into contact with white people as equals. "Don't fight back" also extended into our courtrooms, just ask Mamie Till, the parents of the Scottsboro boys, and maybe now...the Martins.

I like to think that I'm exaggerating. I like to believe that the Martins aren't an echo of the Tills. I like to believe that what happened in Florida is an isolated incident, and that the little boys with dark skin that are important parts of my life are immune to the kind of death Trayvon Martin suffered. People ask me to respect the justice system, because it works. I thought it worked in a "if you don't wanna do the time, don't do the crime" sort of way. But if the person who pulled the trigger finds justification through our justice system, that means the culpable party was...Trayvon. If I am to believe that our justice system works, he did something wrong, but I need help figuring out what it is.

This isn't about white vs. black for me. For me, it's about minimizing risk, and for that I need to pinpoint the mistake Trayvon made that led to his demise and the subsequent release of his killer. I'm desperately trying to think of a way to tell my nephews Kenny, Kayden, Gabriel, Jhalil, and Caeli how to avoid the fate of Trayvon Martin, and all I can think of is "don't fight back." And that truly terrifies me.