By Odeisel
And now the George Zimmerman case is closed. We’ve heard arguments from both sides and the social networks, as well as the comment sections of all related Zimmerman case articles have been full of opinions, both informed and disgusting. George Zimmerman isn’t a policeman. he isn’t white, although he has probably lived with some form of privilege in order to refer to a fellow minority as “them.” It was strange to see this conflict unfold along racial lines the way it did but this case has been co-opted by the powers that be since its inception.
I never thought there was enough evidence to prove the murder two charge and I expected the verdict. But even though George Zimmerman is half Peruvian, he has lived a life of privilege; the kind of life that makes you think that your situation is different from those beneath you. But that privilege is what ultimately leads to an incident like this.
From the outset of this incident, I always wondered why there were no current pictures of Trayvon Martin used by the media. There were a ton of younger shots of Martin, probably in an attempt to make the situation more tragic and more of a story. Then you saw more menacing pictures of him as information came out about how tall he was, and once we found out he beat the cowboy shit out of curious George, those pictures were used to create the sense of danger that would make Zimmerman shooting him understandable. Hulking black teen, clothed in a hoody (presumably with baggy jeans and Timberlands) straight from a rap video running up on Neighborhood George. Only Trayvon was a skinny kid in skinny jeans with aspirations to fly planes not sling crack rock or shoot jump shots.
I started this piece before the verdict of not guilty was handed down by the jury in this case. It doesn’t change the focus, but the Trayvon Martin case is just very tragic and at the heart of the issue is the price of Black life in America and the conditions under which Black men live. This country has had a war on Terror for over a decade, but Black people have been subject to terror since before America was a country. We often look at racism with a logical eye and as a damaged people, Blacks are always trying to figure out what role they play in their own subjugation.
Look on the face of that child above. His flames extinguished, his dreams dashed; his limbs lifeless. Look how gangly his legs are. This is the face of terror that black people live under. A face not obscured by the shadows of a hoody, but fresh-faced, clean shaven and dead to the world; victim of a man possessed by the fear of a Black planet. A man no different than the white woman of the clutched purse, or the gun owner preparing for a race war that will never come. America has ridden the fear of the Black man through slavery, through the Reconstruction, through Jim Crow and into the sophistication of the Pax Obama, where people scream post-racial America, but erect glass ceilings and regularly attempt to curtail the suffrage of Black people.
So where do we go from here? Do we really expect America to change because another young man gets killed? What makes Trayvon any different from Oscar Grant, or Sean Bell or Yusef Hawkins? When is this “conversation about race” ever going to happen? When someone in congress can yell out “LIAR!” to Barack Obama. When people actually ask the President for a birth certificate. When Mitch McConnell can openly admit to stonewalling the President and any attempts at governing. What kind of hope do Black people have to defend themselves in the country of their birth?
It doesn’t necessarily have to be some galactic unity movement. It can be done individually without having to agree with anyone else’s issues or principles. Black people will have to start speaking with commerce. It’s the only language that America understands; the only power it respects. Montgomery could have cared less about Rosa Parks sitting on a bus. They were moved by Black people walking to work and carpooling; those Black dollars stopped going to the bus company.
When Stevie Wonder proclaimed he wasn’t going to play Florida as long as that stand your ground law is there. Of course Stevie’s boycott is fairly meaningless alone. Can you imagine, however what would happen if no Black people went to Disney World for a year? If they stopped going to Heat games or any athletic event? Can you imagine the fiscal chaos that would ensue? Maybe enough to make those monied interests lobby for that law to be altered.
If there was a list published of Zimmerman legal fund supporters, could you imagine what would happen if there was a bank on there, and every Black customer of that bank withdrew all of their funds in a day? Or if some athletic company was on there and people stopped supporting that?
I promise you, your riots are meaningless. I promise you that your threats of violence are pointless. But I assure you that your pockets are all-powerful. I’d bet my last dollar that every last Black dollar is sufficient to move mountains. Understand the power of a dollar. Martin Luther King Jr. lasted from 1955 to 1967 talking about race. He didn’t last a year talking about commerce and poor people. THAT’S how powerful money is. If you want the red to stop running from the Black, you should really start thinking green. You don’t have to agree with a Farrakhan, a Sharpton or a Jackson. Focus on controlling your Benjamins. That’s the only way to make anyone pay in this war on terror.
