Crack Your Skull

If the previous post seemed a tad…disjointed, it probably had a lot to do with the concussion I gave myself an hour or so prior. In the haze of traumatic brain injury it seemed good. At least good enough. As a dose of real talk, I’m sick of anything related to Trayvon’s shooting. Anything I read either confirms my own opinions or tells me I should get used to being seen as a violent criminal because I’m black. In different ways, they’re both wastes of time.

Blood at the Root

Last night the (former) Confederacy’s peculiar brand of justice found George Zimmerman not guilty after stalking, picking a fight with, and then killing a young black teenager when Trayvon Martin decided to stand his ground against a sketchy armed man harassing him for walking to his father’s house. I confess I did not follow the trial very closely at all, in large part because I had a feeling I already knew the outcome. Between the weeks it took for Zimmerman to be arrested and the months and months before the case went to trial there was a prevailing sense this would just be more of the same. My mother is fond of saying “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and indeed, in a time when a black man with a funny name is reelected president, Martin’s murder and Zimmerman’s acquittal serve as sharp reminders that in America, and particularly the south, people of my ilk are often guilty until proven innocent. I don’t often identify with large groups of people but I have found myself in exactly these sorts of situations that disproportionately affect young black men.