With the issue of gender, with the issue of sexual orientation , with the issue of race, with anything concerning the acceptance of others. For some reason we just don't like to include those that are different from us.
Maybe because this country was built upon the belief of someone always being superior. Even before the United States was a country. We're never just equal, equality has always been a lost cause because someone always thinks that they are better.
Instead, we like to blame and ridicule and stereotype one another by our beliefs, the way we sound, and most often just by each others appearances. We don't take the time to get to know one another, to look beyond those stereotypes and see that not everyone fits the same profile. There are so many good people out there that get dragged down with the bad just because of "what" people think they are, and not because someone took the time to see "who" they are.
What happened to Trayvon Martin is a tragedy on a national scale.
And it should be.
The country needs a wake up call. To see just how much it has been digressing.
Trayvon Martin really was a good kid, like I said. According to his English teacher Trayvon was "an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness." Trayvon was out to the store to buy a bag of skittles and a can of iced tea and was busy talking on his cell phone to a girl his was close to back home on the day that he was unjustly shot and killed by George Zimmerman.
Now some people are saying that this case is being blown out of proportion by the whole "race issue," but I beg to differ.
George Zimmerman was, well still is I guess because he is alive unlike Trayvon, so is 28 years old. Weighs 250 pounds. And is a grown white male.
He has been a self entitled member of a neighbor hood patrol in his gated neighborhood in Sanford, Florida and has been 'fighting crime' based mostly on racial profiling. In the past 14 months Zimmerman has made numerous phone calls, 46 to be exact, to 911 to report several "suspicious persons." They all just so happened to be black, like Trayvon.
It is not just Zimmerman who resorts to racial profiling to "keep the streets safe." Just last year, the New York City Police Department stopped over 700,000 people. Over half of which were black and nine percent were white. Doesn't seem to add up when one figures in that over half of New York City's population is white. It also turns out that over 90% of these "suspicious persons" were innocent.
How surprising.
"When the police target specific groups of people at such a disproportionate rate, less-informed individuals will conclude that those groups must be more dangerous, regardless of the fact that most are innocent. It forces the targeted groups to live in fear and contempt of authorities, which in turn makes them look suspicious."
Just a look at the Trayvon Martin case is convincing enough of the validity of this statement.
Trayvon was walking back to the house of his father's fiance and due to the rainy weather, had sensibly put his hood up.
That is when Zimmerman started following him because he "felt threatened."
No.
Because Trayvon had his hood up. And because he was black. And because of this he was a "danger."
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| Trayvon Martin, left, and his perpetrator George Zimmerman, right. |
They say that justice is blind, and until George Zimmerman- hiding behind the Stand Your Ground law- is put behind bars, nothing could be more true.
Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/justice/florida-teen-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2, http://www.thegrio.com/specials/trayvon-martin/trayvon-martin-15-facts-you-need-to-know-about-teen-shot-in-sanford-florida.php?page=2, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/19/148905661/killing-of-fla-teen-trayvon-martin-becomes-national-story-about-race, http://www.thegrio.com/news/past-zimmerman-911-calls-war.php, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jess-coleman/if-i-were-trayvon-martin_b_1376095.html
