Lack of perspective

The shooting of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy.  Not only was a young life taken, but another life was changed irrevocably.  Some people hate George Zimmerman, others pity him.  The outcome of the trial was bound to disappoint someone.

No one will ever know for sure what happened that fateful night.  But the facts of the case suggest that it was either a horrible accident that could have been avoided or the act of a bigoted, cowardly man.  But to suggest anything beyond that is ludicrous.

Now comes word that some influential and very visible African-Americans are of the opinion that Trayvon Martin's case is equivalent to that of Emmett Till.  As the Chicks on the Right put it:

Because the last time I checked, 14-year old Emmett Till was taken to a barn (back in 1955, mind you) by a group of white men, brutally beaten, he had one of his eyes gouged out, and then he was shot in the head by cold blood by said men.  Then, his body was dumped in a river.  And this was BECAUSE he was black and he flirted with a white woman.

The only similarities between Martin's death and Till's murder are that both the decedents were black.  Zimmerman has been described as a white of Hispanic descent, which is the race-baiting way of saying he was biracial.  There was no evidence presented at trial suggesting that Martin's race was the motivation for the shooting.  There is no evidence that he flirted with a white woman.  His eye wasn't gouged out, he wasn't shot in the head and his body wasn't dumped in the river.  In fact, Zimmerman cooperated with police at the scene after the shooting.

The abject lack of perspective is appalling.  It's one thing for the Forever Selma architect Al Sharpton to suggest this.  But Oprah, the woman many people of both races view as balanced and reasoned, thinks Martin's case is the same as Till's case?  It's preposterous to suggest that a murder so grisly as Till's could even be mentioned in the same breath as Martin's.  Again, there is absolutely no similarity between the two deaths:  One was a savage murder, plain and simple.  The other was a tragic and quite unnecessary accident, or it was simple murder.  But to link these two deaths is fatuous.

What's equally disappointing about the reaction to the Zimmerman acquittal by segments of the black community, whether it be the violence wrought by some or the ignorance spewed by others.  I wonder why there wasn't outrage and subsequent rioting by whites after the O.J. Simpson verdict.  There were plenty of disappointed watchers of that trial, yet there was no violence when he was acquitted (full disclosure:  I didn't care then and I don't care now about the verdict.  It was no more important to me than a run-of-the-mill murder case on the south side of Chicago).

What matters is that the justice system worked.  There is no evidence of a prejudiced judge. prosecutor or jury that skewed the verdict toward acquittal.  The defense wasn't given any more change to make its case and may actually have been hampered by the misdoings of the prosecutors' office.  That African-Americans don't like the verdict I can understand.  What I can't understand is the absolute abandonment of perspective about it.

Unless and until African-Americans of every socio-economic level understand Martin Luther King Jr.'s words and take them to heart, there will always be a divide between whites and blacks in this country.  Here, again, is what he said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Justice should be blind.  It attempts to be perfect but isn't.  As part of man's greatest human experiment, the American judicial system continues to evolve to provide the nearest thing to true justice this world has ever known.  That it doesn't satisfy everyone all the time is a by-product of the ongoing attempt.

Rioting and the abandonment of reason don't further the pursuit of justice one bit.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles