A Hug Emoji is Not Enough!

Once again, I am up late, night owl that I am, and I have been running through all kinds of posts on social media, tonight mostly Instagram. As you can imagine, most people's feeds and stories are filled with posts about George Floyd, and the protests and riots that have resulted from him being murdered by a white policeman. I have waited a while to write about this, because I truthfully do not know what to say. Here's the sad thing. This is nothing new. I remember sitting in my apartment in September of 1992, 9 months pregnant with my first child, watching the riots being filmed and broadcast after the Rodney King verdict was released. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I was born in 1963, so I lived through the civil rights movement, but I was really to young to realize what was going on around me. 1992 was really the first time I saw what was going on with my own two eyes. It was so scary to me. I watched film footage of two black men going up to the cab of an 18-wheeler, opening the door and pulling the white driver out and beating him with baseball bats. I was shocked. I remember thinking, "I'm glad that's not here." But you know what else I did?...NOTHING. That was the first real event involving race that I really remember. Fast forward to 2012, and the murder of Trayvon Martin. Oh, you'll be so proud of me. I posted on Facebook about his death. I changed my profile picture to his image. I even wrote a blog post about what I thought when the verdict came down. You know what else I did?....NOTHING. Then I watched the video posted of the policeman who shot and murdered Philando Castile in 2017 (ironically also in Minnesota). This time I was very distraught. I truthfully could not believe what I was seeing. I wrote a blog post then, too. Don't worry. This one even had a tone of anger and outrage! I try to look at things logically. I try to see both sides. There is nothing worse than blabbing on and on when you don't know what you're talking about. In my opinion, you do more harm to the cause than good. This was the first time, and I am ashamed to say it, that I really saw what I didn't want to see. I didn't want to believe that this was happening. So you know what else I did?....NOTHING. I have scrolled through Facebook, and I have seen posts from my black friends and colleagues about how much they are hurting, and I started to hover, and use the "Hug Emoji, " and then I thought to myself, "Are you kidding?!? A hug Emoji? It's so trite! It's meaningless. I cannot even pretend to know what is going through any black person's mind right now, and trying to pretend that I know or can feel what they are going through is just BULLSHIT! It's not about me! I'm white. And this has nothing to do with guilt. I'm not apologizing for being white. I can't change the color of my skin anymore than a black person can change the color of theirs. What I am saying, and please hear me. I have no idea what it is like to be you. I would not even begin to say I can relate. I cannot. But I know that this cannot go on, and it needs to stop, and I want to be part of the solution, not the problem. Something has got to change. Do you know why there is a hashtag and phrasing everywhere that says black lives matter? It's because over and over this nation has proven that they don't. Sorry, plain and simple. I don't have to say white lives matter because I have never been shown that they don't. When I began this post, I looked up whether the officer who murdered Philando Castile was convicted. He wasn't. I cannot believe that any jury member who watched that video could have done anything else but convict. When I was raising my girls, and they would do something to hurt my feelings, or each others, they would always say they were sorry. My response to them was. Don't tell me you're sorry. Words mean nothing. Show me you're sorry. Change your behavior so I know that your words mean something. We can hug emoji, and hashtag all we want. We can post and say how outraged we are, and it means NOTHING! unless we change the way we act. No Justice! No Peace! Know justice! Know peace!

"The consequences of an act affect the probability of it's occurring again." ~ B. F. Skinner

I received an email the other day from a longtime friend who regularly reads my blog posts. She said in the email that she was surprised that she had not seen a post from me about the Zimmerman verdict. When the verdict was released, I thought about writing a post. It would have been a knee-jerk reaction post. I remember how shocked I was almost 18 months ago when this actually happened. I changed my profile picture on Facebook to Trayvon's picture to bring awareness and in memoriam for a young life lost senselessly on February 26, 2012. I remember the news items that came out after the shooting, and I was amazed that George Zimmerman was not arrested and charged. As is the case with most stories like this, the media grabs on and will not let go, and most of what we see and hear is exactly what the media wants us to see and hear. They try to shape our opinions and form our thoughts, and most of the time, albeit probably subconsciously, we let them. How many of us really try to read the details of exactly what happens? How many of us make a snap judgement because of a sensational headline we read on our newsfeed or a 15 second sound byte from a reporter on television? Do we really delve into the facts of the case? Originally George Zimmerman was released for lack of evidence. Then the media stirred the racism pot, and 6 weeks later he was arrested for murder. Was George Zimmerman a racist? I don't know. Did he go out that night with the intention of finding a young black man to kill him? I don't know. What do I know? George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin. What I don't know is exactly what happened that led to that event. Only two people know that, and one of them is dead. From reading the accounts of what happened that night and listening to the 911 calls, this is what I think. George Zimmerman acted irresponsibly out of fear and frustration and a little bit of power gone to his head, no pun intended. There had been break-ins in Zimmerman's gated community, and because of this the neighborhood thought it would be a good idea to form a neighborhood watch group. Sounds reasonable, right? George Zimmerman was elected by his neighbor's to be the coordinator of the program. On the night of the shooting Zimmerman was not on patrol. He was actually running an errand and saw Trayvon and felt he was suspicious looking. He called the NON-emergency Police number and reported his observations. While on the phone with the dispatcher, he says that the man is running. When asked if he is following him, Zimmerman replies yes, and the dispatcher says "we don't need you to do that." Zimmerman answers with "okay" The call ended at 7:15PM. By 7:17PM, Police arrived on the scene and Trayvon had already been shot. What happened in those 2 minutes? Zimmerman says Trayvon confronted him, and after an altercation he shot Trayvon in self defense. Eyewitnesses do say they saw the "fight", but no one seems to give an account of what started the fight. There is testimony of Trayvon making a call to a friend expressing concern over someone following him. Apparently, the friend tells him to run to where he is staying. The "running" is what seemed to start the wheels in motion for Zimmerman. Zimmerman also gave a statement that Trayvon had circled his car, and that he had put the window up to avoid confrontation. If that was the case, why did he get out of the car to chase Trayvon while he was running? Why didn't he just stay in his car and wait for police? Here's what I think happened: George Zimmerman was extremely frustrated about the state of his neighborhood. In the span of a little over a year, police had been called to the gated community 402 times, that averages out to more than once a day. The neighbors are concerned and more than that, they are afraid. They want to feel safe, and so they decide to elect George Zimmerman to coordinate a Neighborhood watch program. My guess would be that Zimmerman took this job seriously, maybe a little too seriously. I think that night that he was running his errand in the rain, and saw someone he didn't know in his neighborhood, he decided to be the hero. I'll catch this one, he's thinking, and so he follows him, observing his "suspicious" behavior. Did he follow him because he was black? No, I don't think so. It was dark and raining, I doubt he could even tell his race from the car. From Trayvon's perspective, he's walking home in the rain from a convenience store in a neighborhood where he is a guest, not familiar to the locals. Testimony was given that he was on his phone with a friend and that he noticed that this "creepy ass cracker" was following him. She told him to run to the townhouse where he was staying. I don't know about you, but if I were a 17 year old boy and a grown man was following me in a car, I would run too. Unfortunately, that's all Zimmerman needed to assume Trayvon was guilty of something, and he was going to do his duty, and get this "asshole that always gets away" Even though he was told not to pursue him, Zimmerman did, and he had a gun. When the two came face to face, I'm sure they did fight. If I were Trayvon, I would try to beat up some creepy guy who had been following me, and now was right in front of me. Zimmerman had no legal authority to do anything to Trayvon, but report what he thought was going on, and let the police handle it. That was the problem. He made a choice to take on the role of cop for a day, and then things got terribly out of hand. He put himself in a situation he was not trained to handle, and he ended up shooting and killing a 17 year old boy that was a visitor to his community. Welcome to the neighborhood.
I am not a legal expert. I was not in the courtroom to listen to the trial each day, and I do not know the intricacies of Florida law. Do I think the jury was wrong? No. What we seem to forget is one tiny little phrase, "beyond a reasonable doubt" If I was on the jury, would I have voted guilty? I don't know because I wasn't there. I didn't hear what they heard. I didn't see what they saw, and that's just the point. I've never even served on a jury for a traffic ticket, let alone a high profile murder case like this one. I cannot imagine the responsibility! I keep thinking of the movie 12 Angry Men. If you haven't seen it, rent it, and watch it. It will change the way you feel about the justice system and juries in general.
Do I think George Zimmerman shot Trayvon because he was afraid for his life? Yes, I do, but I still think he should have been held accountable for taking another life because he set all the wheels in motion that put him in that situation of feeling like he had to use "lethal force" to protect himself. To me it's like someone picking a fight with me, and then because I'm kicking their ass, they shoot me. Not really a fair fight, is it? Trayvon was not committing a crime. He did not deserve to die because an over zealous guy with a gun thought he was up to no good. We know he shot Trayvon, we have the weapon he used. His actions led to the altercation which led to a death. How can we say he is not responsible? How does he not suffer any consequences? A lawyer friend of mine said it best, "If he broke the law, he should be punished. If he didn't, they [Florida] need better laws."