Zimmerman Acquital Wrong in So Many Ways

Like many of us out here in the Real World, I am sick and heartbroken over the Zimmerman acquittal. Because I am the mom of two young men, I find the significance of this trial to be particularly troubling. Really smart folks have honed in and commented on the prominent issues of racial profiling or on prosecutorial mismanagement and already so much has been said about this horrible tragedy and the relentless miscarriage of justice that has followed. But the Angry White Mom sees this rather simply. This   Zimmerman acquittal basically upholds a lot of really scary ideas that touch all  moms as scorchingly as that bullet passed through Trayvon Martin’s hoodie on its way to his heart.  It is a clear warning shot over the heads of all young men between the ages of 16 and 25.

For years—well, centuries, really, American mothers of black and brown and any mixture thereof American children have had to caution them about being around White People.  Now, most white people don’t know this and don’t care but it is the Truth and there is a long and complex history that supports this Truth. With their willful disregard of prosecution witnesses, facts, and Zimmerman’s obvious manipulation of his story, this jury of white women has just condemned children of every walk of life to the possibility of their lives becoming forfeit to the neurotic fears of another pudgy Barney Fife Zimmerman.

The Truth of it is, now every young man between on his way home on foot is subject to being accosted and interrogated by anyone who has a notion of their own superiority.  Whether that sense of being better is because of ignorance and prejudice, religious intolerance, or because of the availability of firearms, or because laws everywhere are starting to support the shooter over the shot, the effect is the same. In reality, New York cops have been doing this “stop and frisk” profiling for years now.  Other police departments are considering it as a regular thing, not just a necessary evil in times of domestic crisis. It’s bad enough, to my way of thinking, that a uniformed official can exercise the legal right to stop anybody for anything at anytime for any reason, but now this Florida jury says its okay for anybody to stop anybody.  And if anybody wants to  pick a fight with you, they have the right to shoot you when it becomes clear they are losing the fight. Somehow this is now called “self-defense.”  We probably should now call it the Zimmerman Help Help I Have a Gun Defense and attorney Mark O”Mara should hang his head in shame.

We should all hang our heads in shame. Because we all accept it, all with reasons for accepting it as varied as our own selves. I am so reminded of the great author Robert Heinlein’s observation by the timeless character Lazarus Long, “You can have peace, or you can have freedom; don’t ever count on having the two at the same time.”

The Truth is that we have traded our freedom for security, and not even real security at that, just a thin veneer of temporary safety. Whipped into a frenzy of urban fears by rabid right-wing hatemongers, we so desperately want peace from the nonexistent threats in our streets, but we are determined to stay away from tacking the hard parts like revising laws and cleaning up law enforcement. Americans  prefer to rely instead on short-term chest pounding and tears that eventually bores the press and makes politicians fidget.

Sometimes the Truth Really Hurts. And no bandage can cover the pain.