Stand Your Ground: Picking Up the Pieces of the Trayvon Martin Case

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A friend of mine recently explained to a gathered group of friends that simply living her everyday life at Connecticut College was and continues to be the venue of the most intense racism she has ever encountered in her life.

Random passerbys and oblivious professors in the context of a predominantly white school dish out casual racism knowingly and unknowingly, and it was the first time racism was a reality for her. She later went on to say, in so many words, that bravery in personal relationships can ease the pain of racism and give those suppressed by it hope; to be brave and honest and genuine with peoples of all colors, peoples of all personal and psychological nuances, quirks, memories and futures. The bravery to be uncomfortable in a relationship or interaction, to embrace what you were once ignorant of and perhaps afraid of, and realize the beauty in it. I found this very poignant —the simplicity of it especially moved me.

But is it really that easy? Is there a bravery switch one can turn on and off? Ignorance, though controllable, barely seems like a choice any sane person would commit to consciously. But maybe I’m ignorant myself, or at least childish or naïve, in thinking that “finding beauty in everything” is an instinctual or natural occurrence in a world with so many faces and mysterious, unfamiliar, almost alien traditions and histories. In a world of such differences, hatred is also an instinct, a defense mechanism to push away the unfamiliar. Perhaps there is bravery in denial of hatred as an instinct, and replacing hatred with an invitation to what is new and unknown. A moment of hatred could have defined the moment George Zimmerman pulled the trigger on Trayvon Martin.

On February 26, 2012 George Zimmerman, a mixed-race white and Peruvian man shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed seventeen-year-old African-American in Sanford, Florida. The details of the case have been hotly debated since the incident occurred, but many feel that the shooting was racially motivated rather than an act of self-defense. Due to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, no charges have been filed against Zimmerman by the state’s attorney office.

Reports and evidence, as reported all across the mainstream media and the blogosphere, tell us of a confusing, loud encounter between the two men. To what extent was Zimmerman provoked, many ask. Most stand by Trayvon, iconizing and romanticizing details of the attack. Skittles and hooded sweatshirt hold a new, powerful meaning. It does not matter that Trayvon may have gotten in trouble at school a few times for smoking weed; it does not matter that he was violent before Zimmerman ended his life. What really matters is that Trayvon could have been anyone, the scene of the crime could have been anywhere, and that implication raises tension even more in a country already flooded with racial division and angst.

Allow these scandalous, media-slaughtered stories to spark a conversation in your own life, and understand that bravery lives in understanding and love. That, for whatever reason there is hatred in the world, for whatever reason there is an urge to kill in the heat of our blood, we have the power to fight that urge; we have the control to manipulate it.

I’ve watched friends and family pass on devastating hatred through their bloodline, spread it to those who love and trust each other the most. An abusive and absent father manipulates his daughter to hate her desperately hard-working mother and loving brother. Parents, caught in their own abusive cycle, subject their children to the cult of a religion that teaches to hate, alienate and hurt so many populations of innocent people with differing beliefs.

When those we love encourage us to hate, hate becomes a gateway to acceptance. Perhaps when someone we trust promotes hatred, when that someone we trust is the center of our life and defines how we live and why we live it… where are we to turn except that hatred? Too many people are taught to fill the void with fear and ignorance burned inside them with hatred. It does not have to be this way, and it takes personal relationships and trust to heal the wounds hatred, ignorance and fear that is so innate in mass media and social relationships.

I can only hope that the Trayvon Martin case brings people together and starts a constructive dialogue about race relations in the United States. Even though we have a black President and have made incredible progress toward a more free and equal society, we still have a long way to go as a nation.

We all have the power of speech; we all have the power of connection with others, and to unlearn the prejudices bestowed upon us by some of our fellow Americans. We all have the choice to put the gun away. •