Fight Back Against Racist Lynchings!

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of thousands have been held in New York; 8000 marched in Philadelphia, 3000 in Seattle, and more in Chicago, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. Demonstrations as large as 25,000 have been held in Sanford, Fla., where the crime took place. Miami high school students walked out of class. Hundreds of churches encouraged their congre­ gations to wear hoodies to Sunday services. The majority of the demonstrators have been young Af­ rican Americans, many wearing “hoodie” sweatshirts and demanding “Justice for Trayvon!” The chant “I am Tray­ von Martin!” is heard everywhere.

Protests have forced the Sanford police chief to “tempo­ rarily” step down and have impelled state and federal au­ thorities to announce an investigation. President Obama, previously silent, made a statement of sympathy with Trayvon’s parents and said that if he had a son, he would “look like Trayvon.”

On Feb. 26, Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black man, was confronted by an armed “town watch” vigilante, George Zimmerman. Trayvon was walking back to his father’s home from a nearby convenience store with an iced tea and a bag of Skittles. He had gone there during halftime of the NBA All-Star game.

Zimmerman, speaking on the phone with a 911 operator, reported seeing a “suspicious” person walking through the neighborhood. Ignoring instructions of the 911 op­ erator to not approach Trayvon, Zimmerman continued to follow. Moments before fatally shooting Trayvon, ac­ cording to witnesses, Zimmerman uttered the racist epi­ thet, “fucking coons.” Witnesses heard Trayvon’s cries for help followed by gunshots.

When Sanford cops arrived they found Trayvon lying dead on the ground; Zimmerman claimed to have shot him in self-defense. No forensic evidence was gathered and no attempt was made to identify Trayvon, who was initially labeled a “John Doe.” Trayvon’s body was tested for alcohol and drugs, while Zimmerman was not simi­ larly tested. Trayvon’s father made repeated calls to po­ lice about his missing son for 24 hours before he found out about the murder. The Sanford police were previously criticized for racial incidents; including the failure to ar­ rest a police lieutenant’s son—for almost one month—for beating a Black homeless man.

Zimmerman was released shortly after the killing and has yet to be charged for any crime. His claim of self-de­ fense was based on the so-called “Castle Doctrine,” which has expanded the definition of self-defense in a number of states. Previously, self-defense statues required a person to attempt to retreat from a situation before using deadly force. Now, the law states that someone can “stand their ground” against an assailant.

The capitalist media have embarked on a campaign to vilify or discredit the image of Trayvon as a “good kid.” The purpose seems to be to take the wind out of the grow­ ing movement and to discourage possible white allies. They ask if Trayvon attacked Zimmerman and highlight Zimmerman’s claim that Trayvon broke his nose before he shot the teen.

The notion that Trayvon—outweighed by Zimmerman by more than 100 pounds and “armed” with a bag of Skit­ 12 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2012 tles—posed a threat to the shooter is ridiculous. What about Zimmerman’s claim that his nose was bro­ ken? Anyone with a broken nose would have swelling and bruises, yet none are present in any photograph. It is also significant that the funeral director who prepared Tray­ von’s body for burial released a statement that “we could see no physical signs like there had been a scuffle [or] there had been a fight. … The hands ... I didn’t see any knuckles, bruises or what have you. And that is something we would have covered up if it would have been there.” The media also attempt to smear Trayvon by pointing to the possibility that he might have smoked pot. Never mind that millions of people, white and Black, smoke pot without displaying so-called anti-social behavior! Possi­ bly the worst slander is the picture posted on the ultra-right Drudge Report purporting to show Trayvon flash­ ing gang signs and allegedly taken from the young man’s Facebook page. The picture is not of Trayvon; it’s a com­ plete fabrication.

Clearly, the life of a young Black or Latino is not worth much in this racist society. The extrajudicial murder of young Blacks or Latinos by cops and vigilantes is routine and hardly deemed worthy of comment by the capital­ ist media. These killings echo the lynchings of the Jim Crow South and serve the same purpose—to keep “up­ pity” Blacks and the oppressed in line and under control. Racist curfew laws, “stop and frisk” programs, and the “war on drugs” are all designed to demonize and crimi­ nalize young people of color. The mass incarceration of Black and Latin youth is another symptom of this op­ pressive set-up. Millions are imprisoned, mostly for nonviolent offenses. In fact, more Black people are in prison, jail, or on probation or parole, than were enslaved in the 1850s.

The racist functioning of the criminal “justice” sys­ tem helps reinforce the reactionary narrative that young Blacks are criminal by nature and ignores the fact that institutional racism ensures that oppressed nationalities have fewer opportunities for a good education or wellpaying jobs. Young Blacks are disproportionately more likely to be unemployed or to drop out of school. Death rows across the U.S. house Blacks and Latino/as in exces­ sive proportions.

This does not illustrate the “inherent” criminality of the oppressed and exploited but rather the systemic, in­ stitutionalized racism that is a prop to the U.S. capitalist system. The fact that cops failed to charge Zimmerman, while an outrage, is no surprise. For cops, the death of a young Black man is routine.

Racist violence is not used against only Black youth. Over the weekend of March 24, an Iraqi immigrant wom­ an, Shaima Alawadi, was brutally beaten to death in Cali­ fornia by someone who left a note referring to this inno­