Tag Archives: Trayvon Martin

George Zimmerman’s Verdict: Living Within A Shadow of a Doubt

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Conversations, Media Relations, Public Relations Campaigns

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      Eighteen months after teenager Trayvon Martin died alone one rainy night in Sanford, Florida, his killer, George Zimmerman, endured the scrutiny of a highly mediated investigation and criminal trial.  Yesterday, we learned that a jury of his peers found him to be not guilty.  The jury declined to charge him with either second-degree manslaughter or even of the lesser charge, murder.

     Over the 18 months, I tuned into the rolling fortunes of this case.  For instance, I wrote an earlier post here, trying to contemplate the unimaginable pain, Sybrina Fulton, might have endured during her first Mother’s Day without her son, Trayvon.

      But earlier, during one of my Spring 2012 class in Race, Gender (Class) and the Media, some of my students were so passionate about the tragedy of Trayvon’s death, they helped organize campus rallies and marches requesting that Zimmerman be charged and tried.  When it became apparent that the main rally and march would occur during our class time, I invited one student to speak to the class of around 50 about why they were involved, and why they believed we all should go to these activities instead of class.  She was so convincing that all agreed to attend, and the shared experience gave us many fruitful conversations in later class sessions.

One of my students speaks at an OU Rally in March 2012 about Trayvon Martin's death. Photo Credit: MGCarstarphen.

One of my students speaks at an OU Rally in March 2012 about Trayvon Martin’s death. Photo Credit: MGCarstarphen.

 Incredibly, it was a battle, waged with strategic events and high-profile media coverage,  that helped put Trayvon Martin’s death in the spotlight.  And if we review the case’s timeline, it is striking that although Martin died February 26, 2012, it wasn’t until April 11, 2012 that George Zimmerman was charged and a criminal trial became a reality.

Some of my students participated in the Trayvon Martin march after the earlier rally, and after the time for our class had officialy lapsed. Photo credit: MGCarstarphen.

Some of my students participated in the Trayvon Martin march after the earlier rally, and after the time for our class had officially lapsed. Photo credit: MGCarstarphen.

      It took a highly successful public relations campaign to make this trial possible.  Now, in the aftermath of its verdict, it will take more than a poorly conceived public service announcement to resolve the deep issues this trial reflected.

     As the jury began its deliberations, it took a conversation with someone whose opinion I value greatly to show me how perilous the path to a finding “without a reasonable doubt” could be.  To me, and for many others who believed that this encounter between an unarmed teenager and an adult man with a gun was inherently unfair, a guilty verdict seemed inevitable.

     But unfairness is not necessarily a legal standard, and this trial really put notions of self-defense, danger, and individual rights to stringent tests.  Zimmerman’s defense turned on his evoking his rights to defend himself in the face of “imminent danger” as part of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws.  In principle, this may seem like a logical extension of a citizen’s right to protect him or herself.  But, in practice?  As this Salon article describes, race proves to be a powerful indicator of who needs protecting, and who can be perceived as a threat.

     At the end of the trial, the jury received lengthy guidelines to follow as it considered its verdict.  In order to render a finding of murder, the members of the jury had to be convinced that George Zimmerman acted with “an intent to cause death” beyond a reasonable doubt.

      Beyond a reasonable doubt?  As I listened to my trusted friend’s insights—hours before the verdict became public—it dawned on me, with new, stunning clarity what many others, including the jurors, might contemplate.  And, I began to see how what seemed inevitable to me could dissolve into doubt:

            Did George Zimmerman really mean to murder Trayvon Martin?  How could he have an intent to murder him?….he didn’t even know him.  How could a man like George Zimmerman, with no criminal record, a loving family and a community of loyal friends, decide to murder a stranger in cold blood?  It doesn’t make sense, unless something happened….unless he was provoked to it….unless he was truly afraid.

            These are the words of “reasonable doubt” because it is hard for any of us to believe that a sane person would murder someone unprovoked.  But the residual, enduring effects of racism warps the logic of what is reasonable, and makes sanity look insane. I believe George Zimmerman was afraid, but unless you factor in race, we won’t truly understand why.

            Imagine if Martians arrived to the United States, unknown to us, during the weekend and watched local news coverage. No matter the city or town they were in, they would notice a parade of “crime” news, featuring the menacing faces of usually dark-skinned, male perpetrators at the center of tense encounters with police. How long would it take them, even without knowing our language, to recognize who represent the most fearful threats to our society?  It is not that criminals of color don’t exist—they do.  But crime is a pretty multifaceted set of offenses, and criminals come in all colors.  Ask Bob McDonnell and Virginia constituents about the news trending in their state.  But scholars such as Robert Entman, Travis Dixon and others have documented in multiple studies that the incessant display of criminality in local news featuring men of color as assailants creates irrational fears in white viewers about the nature of crime in their communities.

            Here is the striking thing: these patterns exist in local news operations everywhere.  Is there one master producer who is controlling all of these newscasts? Nope.  But there is a master narrative at work and few of us are immune.

      George Zimmerman certainly wasn’t.  Look at his comments during his infamous 9-1-1 call to police, referring to Trayvon as one of those “f-ing punks” and “assholes” who always get away.  Look at Zimmerman’s decision to follow Martin, despite being told not to.  Look at Zimmerman’s dispassionate demeanor, according to the police reports and their own eyewitness testimony, as he watched an unarmed 17-year-old boy he did not know die as a result of his choices.

     I believe George Zimmerman met and killed a stereotype he greatly feared that night, writ large through the persuasive power of a racial profile that was at the heart of this case.  The real tragedy is that he didn’t even see Trayvon as the person he was—a teenager, unarmed, in the rain, trying to get to a place he had every right to be.  Home.

     This trial may be over, but the conversation must continue.  What do you think?

Sybrina Fulton and Trayvon Martin: About Raising Children On the Cusp of Fear and Hope

13 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Observances, Women's Words

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The first time I got an inkling that Mother’s Day could be something other than joyful was when I watched my mother grieve the loss of her own mom,  my grandmother Patsy.  I remember how we were in the wood-paneled basement of our three-story Philadelphia home when she got the call.  I can still her cradling the beige telephone handset on her chest with closed eyes after the sad news came from Louisiana.  Decades later, I struggled with my own grief (and still do) when Mother’s Day rolls around.  Although I was in the room with my mom and held her hand as she breathed her last, I have to fight to turn my thoughts from grief and longing, to gratitude and joyful memory for having had her in my life.

So, I think of these things today as I write this tribute in honor of Sybrina Fulton whose video message to all mothers is something everyone should view.  If this name is familiar, it should be.  Sybrina Fulton is the poised, but grieving mother of slain teenage Trayvon Martin, whose tragic death in Florida has sparked news coverage nationally and beyond.  Today, on her Twitter account, Sybrina sent a post that begins:

“As I send you this message, my heart hurts and my eyes are full of tears for my beloved son Trayvon.”

There is no way that anyone can attempt to interpret her grief and I certainly won’t try to here.  I do know that today is only one of the many bumps in the road she will face on the road to closure and peace about her son’s loss.  She has courageously transferred her grief into action, with the formation of the Justice for Trayvon Martin Foundation designed to address what she believes were underlying issues contributing to her son’s untimely death.  The second-degree murder trial of her son’s self-confessed killer, George Zimmerman is likely not to occur until October 2013 or later, prolonging her anxiety.  Still, Sybrina must be heartened by the generous donations of leave time by her co-workers in the Miami-Dade County, where she has worked for 23 years.  Their gifts will allow her to take eight months off and retain a salary while she waits, watches and prays.

Raising a child in any day and age is a challenge.  As parents, we want to protect our children from harm and yet propel them to navigate their own way through a future we cannot know.  African American mothers often struggle with raising their children through a contradictory message of fear and hope.  Our children, like all children, must know how to walk boldly in this world in order to claim all that it has to offer.  Yet as parents and elders we know that there are unseen terrors, unspoken threats and invisible enemies lurking.  How do we voice these without shutting down our children’s desire to go confidently into their unseen futures?

I call this mindset constructive paranoia.  To explain it, consider the definition of paranoia.  It is when you think people are out to get you.  But…. what if there are some people who really are out to get you?  Then, you learn to be guarded around people who might be threats in broad ways in order to be protected against the narrow chances when that caution might be justified.  In the wake of Tayvon Martin’s murder, some commentators have referred to this as “the talk” and explicated how some of the elements of this bittersweet conversation between parents and their children.

Look around.  If you can, observe children from different ethnic backgrounds in the presence of their parents, and watch the African American kids.  Do they seem more restrained on the playground?  Are they less vocal in public gatherings? Are they far less likely to, for instance, wander up and down the aisles of a supermarket unattended without some adult sternly pulling them back into view?  Or, when some children boldly verbally challenge adults, or break into the front of a line without apology, watch whose parents are nonchalant and whose are agitated.  Because one child’s “cute” behavior is another child’s accidental slip into danger.

Sybrina Fulton’s grief is no doubt compounded by this familiar dilemma.  She tried to raise her son for freedom, describing him as a typical teen in many a media account.  Trayvon got to play video games, travel to New York City, and imagine a career in aviation. And yet he died after being shot on a visit to his father just yards away from the townhome where he slept.  Does she wonder, in the irrational way that grieving hearts can do, if there was something else she could have warned her son about that could have saved his life.

Raising children on the cusp of fear and hope is an all too-familiar place for many parents with African American children.  It is a space created by the social condition of racial stereotyping and distrust, and it is something we all must battle.  Because when a Trayvon Martin dies, and a George Zimmerman kills him, we all lose, and the hearts of two mothers break in unfixable ways.