Either way, a child is dead

Florida has been through a lot lately.

The Casey Anthony trial kept us entertained for years. They’ve had some hurricanes.

Then last year George Zimmerman was arrested for shooting Trayvon Martin, making Florida host to the most popular court trial in the country.

Zimmerman was found not guilty July 14 and acquitted of all charges, including second-degree murder and manslaughter.

The Internet broke out in posts about Zimmerman like pimples on a teenager. And most of them were not happy.

As I type, there is a hashtag blowing up Twitter called #IfIEverSeeZimmerman. People are using it to threaten Zimmerman. The threats range from spitting in his face to killing him on the street. And I started to get really annoyed as I scrolled through the feed and noticed that, according to the profile pictures, the majority of harassers were African American.

One murder was quickly turned into a race war. This isn’t a “protect your own” situation. One black boy being killed doesn’t mean the entire African American population needs to rise up and target Zimmerman.

I’ve heard people describe the case as “some black boy got shot by a Mexican.” And then they go crazy about how the gunman must be racist. If Zimmerman had been black it would be a completely different conversation.

“Hey man, did you hear about that black kid in Florida who was shot?”

“No way! Who did it?”

“Just some black dude.”

Though self-defense shootings don’t happen often, when they do they aren’t blown out of proportion like Zimmerman’s case was. For example, in 2010 in St. Louis, John Wolf shot a man in self-defense. The man held a gun to his head and tried to rob him. He didn’t get his own Twitter hashtags. It didn’t take  more than a year to settle the case.

However, I do believe Zimmerman is guilty of racial profiling. You can’t assume every black male with a hoodie is a thug concealing weapons. That’s a stereotype played out by corny rappers who can’t dress themselves nicely and lazy wardrobe departments for television shows. Lay off the Law & Order marathons for a while and calm down.

When I see a white person with a white hoodie on I don’t think KKK and assume I’m about to be lynched on my way to class.

Martin didn’t have any weapons on him, unless you count a bag of Skittles and a can of tea. Wanting to taste the rainbow is a far cry from wanting to kill.

But I’m straying from the point.

A lot of time was wasted arguing a case that should have been solved quickly. The Martin family shouldn’t have had to wait a more than a year to hear if they would get justice for their son’s death. People focused so much on the race issue it’s as if they forgot the true importance of this case: there was a 17-year-old boy named Trayvon Martin, and he’s dead.

Black people need to stop acting like they’ve personally been attacked and let the Martin family mourn.

­— lnbanks@indiana.edu