Bill Fletcher Jr.
I received the news when I was getting ready to eat.
I was prepared, intellectually, for a not-guilty verdict. I was not ready in my gut. As a radical i am quite aware of the injustices that regularly and historically have happened to people of color and to the poor. I am aware of how the system regularly justifies the murder of black people.
Yet i am nothing but sickened. And sitting here listening to these so-called defense attorneys gloat over their victory and place the blame for Trayvon Martin’s death on Trayvon is actually more than i can take.
This verdict is a verdict in favor of white fear. We should all be clear about that. This is a verdict that says that white people have every right to fear any and every black person and, if the law permits it, to act upon such fear. I do not care whether Zimmerman is part Latino, he acted as a white man and that is certainly how he will be remembered. Zimmerman looked at Trayvon through the eyes of a white man and assumed danger when no danger existed.
