I don't know where to start. I'm just so saddened by news of the Zimmerman acquittal. It's been about 24 hours and I feel like I'm in a much better place where I'm able to write this outside a place of anger.
The injustice of the legal system
Yes, I am aware that state laws differ but Plexico Burress, the NFL player got 2 years in prison because his gun accidentally went off in his pants and he shot himself in the leg. Yet, a wanna-be cop who racially profiled one of those "assholes who always gets away" and followed him after the dispatcher told him not to, killed him and walks away free?
True, the prosecution did a woeful job. However, we live in a world where white supremacy dictates our lives. 4/5 of the jurors in the case were white, one hispanic. White women who used the "without reasonable doubt" logic as the easy way out to let a murderer walk free. I say it's the easy way out because countless people of color have been found guilty on circumstantial evidence.
Self defense
Yes, I have considered that maybe Trayvon was beating the life out of Zimmerman and he responded in self defense, who knows? However if Zimmerman was black, self defense would not be at the forefront of the deliberations of this largely white jury. Also, I believe that scaring Trayvon with a gun was enough, the trigger did not need to be pulled.
Living in Canada
When Zimmerman was acquitted today, it wasn’t because he’s a so-called white Hispanic. He’s not. It’s because he abides by the logic of white supremacy, and was supported by a defense team—and a swath of society—that supports the lingering idea that some black men must occasionally be killed with impunity in order to keep society-at-large safe.Source
The injustice of the legal system
Yes, I am aware that state laws differ but Plexico Burress, the NFL player got 2 years in prison because his gun accidentally went off in his pants and he shot himself in the leg. Yet, a wanna-be cop who racially profiled one of those "assholes who always gets away" and followed him after the dispatcher told him not to, killed him and walks away free?
True, the prosecution did a woeful job. However, we live in a world where white supremacy dictates our lives. 4/5 of the jurors in the case were white, one hispanic. White women who used the "without reasonable doubt" logic as the easy way out to let a murderer walk free. I say it's the easy way out because countless people of color have been found guilty on circumstantial evidence.
Self defense
Yes, I have considered that maybe Trayvon was beating the life out of Zimmerman and he responded in self defense, who knows? However if Zimmerman was black, self defense would not be at the forefront of the deliberations of this largely white jury. Also, I believe that scaring Trayvon with a gun was enough, the trigger did not need to be pulled.
Living in Canada
In Canada, gun laws are different and race is usually presented in the discourse of multiculturalism. However, people still make numerous assumptions based on the color of my skin, and the multicultural framework in which Canada exists makes it easy for anti-racist politics to be silenced.
