Trayvon Martin is Not the One on Trial!

Trayvon Martin - Shepard Fairey

It must be tough to be a pro-gun conservative these days. It involves so many breathtaking lapses in logic and so much vaguely veiled hatred that it's gotta hurt the brain.

Take Trayvon Martin. This just in: surprise, surprise—Trayvon was a teenage boy who smoked weed, sometimes got into fights, and had been suspended from school for tagging. How utterly unusual, right? Next thing we'll hear, he owned a skateboard. Drank Red Bull. Had 2Pac on his iPod. 

Now the right is having a hard time because they desperately want George Zimmerman exonerated on the ridiculous "Stand Your Ground" defense, which emboldens people who used to just go home with a black eye after a fight to buy a gun and take a human life when the going gets tough. Because Trayvon was a black teenager, the pro-gun lobby has  no qualms about someone killing him for walking down a street. Unarmed. While, at the same time, they're outraged at the fact that he was "interested" in guns. What, because “nice” kids don't think about the weapons we're constantly parading before their eyes? Because guns should be reserved for racist vigilantes with chips on their shoulders?

Venice Beach. Photo: Rickerlr.

So because he is, basically, your normal teenager, it's OK to kill him for walking down a street looking...what? black? For wearing a hoodie, like 95% of all teens? For smoking pot, like the vast majority of them?

Baltimore mural by Justin Nether

It's hard not to think back to 1994, when Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelly, aka the West Memphis Three, were sent to Death Row merely because they looked like “the type” who could kill 3 kids. They wore black, read about witchcraft, listened to metal. Enough evidence for the judge and jury in an uptight Bible Belt town in Arkansas. 



Is this really how we “try” people in the 21^st 
century? By what we think they're capable of?

And so what? So what if Trayvon was the biggest thug on the block? So what if he was baked 24/7 and pulled straight F's and was the most terrifying badass to hit the streets of Sanford, Florida? The fact remains that walking through a subdivision with a pack of Skittles and an Arizona tea isn't, as far as I know, a crime in any state. If being a 17-year-old with an attitude were a crime, high schools would be empty.

Artist: Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski

Let's remember one thing: Trayvon Martin--the person in this situation who did NOT have a criminal record--is not the guy on trial. Trayvon Martin is the one who got 60 years lopped off his life because some paranoid Neighborhood Watch guy with a record of assaulting a police officer and domestic violence simply didn't like his looks. Didn't stop to think that maybe he was just a teenager walking home to watch a basketball game. Picked a fight, then couldn't handle it when Trayvon gave his bullshit right back to him.

Kudos to Judge Debra Nelson for tossing out the defense's lame attempts to malign based on text messages a teenager sent to his friends. Zimmerman's case has dragged on long enough--far longer than the lynch mob he would have faced had he killed a white boy. While Zimmerman is out on bail, sitting around making websites asking conservatives to support his defense. I'm sick of his attempts to portray his victim in a negative light. And I'm sick of our justice system dragging its feet and buying into Zimmerman's pack of lies.

Let's do this already. 

Trayvon mural in Elmwood Park, NJ. Artists Carmelo "Snow" Sigona, 
"Mr. Mustart," and Ray "Demer" Lopez.