I’m not going to talk about the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case directly. This is not to say that everything that happened wasn’t significant. On the contrary, the case was monumentally important. This was a criminal trial not a soccer match and if we reduce everything down to simple “us vs. them” it detracts from the conversation that we can and must have as a nation.
So I just want to take the chance to expand the dialogue and scope of the issue by examining “Stand Your Ground Law”, self-defense, and race relations in the country today. I want us to look at the case in a broader social context.
To start with, I want to talk about Marissa Alexander and Cece McDonald. Two women, who are not connected to the Zimmerman/Trayvon case but are nevertheless important in their own right, I highly encourage everyone to read about their cases, I certainly do not claim to know all the facts. From a personal standpoint, these women remind me exactly why the idea of a post-racial America is a lie.
Marissa Alexander is a black single mother who had filed a restraining order against her abusive husband. Her husband ended up later confronting Alexander in her own home and she fired a warning shot. Alexander legally owned and had a permit for the firearm. No one was hurt. She was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and prosecuted by the same lawyer that prosecuted Zimmerman. Alexander sought protection under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law” which allows a threatened individual to use force in their own self-defense without being obligated to retreat. She went on trial after refusing a plea bargain for three years in prison. After a 12 minute deliberation, Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
CeCe McDonald is a black transgender woman who was subjected to racial and transphobic slurs by a group of intoxicated individuals outside a bar. Following a verbal confrontation, McDonald and her friends attempted to leave, when one of the individuals cut McDonald’s face with a beer bottle. Another of the individuals, Dean Schmitz, continued following McDonald who armed herself with a pair of scissors and after a physical confrontation, Schmitz was stabbed and later passed away from the wound. She was charged with second degree murder but pled to a manslaughter charge and was sentenced to 41 months in a men’s prison (she did not qualify for transfer to a women’s prison).
These two cases are being juxtaposed with the Zimmerman case in the media, which is not entirely fair since the cases themselves are so different. And I cannot attest to either the guilt or innocence of any of the parties involved. But I do believe race played a factor, in everything from how the media treated certain individuals all the way to how the laws were eventually applied.
Bias exists in the legal system and are both consciously and unconsciously perpetuated. More than anything I think it’s extremely detrimental to say that race doesn’t matter. Race shouldn’t matter but it does just as much as it always has and probably always will. The idea of a post-racial America is wishful thinking at best and blind delusion at worst. There can be no progress, no growth, and no change until we realize how foolish it is to believe that a problem doesn’t exist as long as we pretend hard enough that it doesn’t.
cccspeaks 