I was hoping not to have to talk about this subject; there are probably a lot of people a lot more wise than I who are much more qualified to dissect this horrible event, but in reading, watching and listening to the news, I got to thinking...
Let's get the subjective stuff out of the way. I think this poor kid was killed by a neighborhood watch guy who went way, way beyond what would normally be expected of someone in a neighborhood watch program. I think this George Zimmerman guy ought to be arrested and then we should let the Florida judicial system take its course. (Remember, though, that this is the state that let's Moms kill their kids and walk away scot free).
I think that all of these protests that are sweeping the nation are all well and good, but it makes me wonder...
Where was all of this civic protest yesterday, or over the weekend, or over the last month when the last inter-racial violent crime happened, regardless of which race committed the crime? I don't have any specific crime in mind to quote, but in a country that's as racially, socially and economically diverse as the United States is, I would bet that a huge chunk of crime is inter-racial, inter-social, or inter-economic.
Where are the screaming Congress-critters when these crimes happen? Where is the national angst?
I did a quick Web search to try and find some objective numbers, but quickly ran into a lot of Web sites that tout a lot of pretty suspect information. So, in the interests of objectivity, and to avoid any possibility of promoting some wacko's theory, I'll only ask the questions here.
Ask yourself this...when was the last time that a Hispanic shot an oriental? Did it make the national news? Probably not, at least not that I can recall. Did it make your local news? Maybe, but maybe not.
The larger issue in the Trayvon Martin case is not that an overly zealous neighborhood watch member killed an innocent kid. This is tragic for a lot of people, certainly mostly for Trayvon and the Martin family, but as well for Zimmerman and his family, but also for that neighborhood and town.
I think the larger issue, though, is why we (as a society) ignore most inter-racial crimes, but seem to get really outraged when a young black is victimized by a white guy.
Let's look at the larger picture...where is the national outcry when a black guy shoots another black guy, or assaults a black girl. Where is the rage against Hispanic on Hispanic crime, or oriental on white crime? Should the victim's skin color really determine how society views the crime? Doesn't that lessen the value of the black kid that was killed by the black kid, or the white kid who was killed by the white guy?
Trayvon Martin was needlessly killed, but his death would have been just as needless if he was an oriental, or Hispanic, or white. Mr Zimmerman would be just as guilty, and he probably would still not be arrested, if only because of the way that Florida's law is written.
The question we need to ask is, if Trayvon Martin was white, or Hispanic, or oriental, would Congress be having hearings? Would there be protests all over the country?
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
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