Rage at Trayvon verdict!

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The acquittal of vigilante killer George Zimmerman gave notice to the world that racism is alive and well in the United States. For many days after the verdict was hand­ ed down, protesters repeatedly took to the streets of cities and towns throughout the U.S. and internationally. The initial marches and rallies ranged up to 5000 in New York City, 2000 in Minneapolis, 1000 in Oakland, and many hundreds in other cities.

On July 13, a Florida jury composed of five white women and one woman of color found Zimmerman not guilty in the slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Although Florida’s population is 30 percent Black, not a single Black person was placed on the jury.

Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, told the press that she was shocked at the jury’s verdict: “They didn’t see Trayvon as their son, they didn’t see Trayvon as a teen­ ager, they didn’t see Trayvon as just a human being that was minding his own business.”

In February 2012, George Zimmerman had trailed Martin, first in his car and then on foot, as the Black high school student walked home through a gated community after having bought a snack at a local shop. Within minutes, as Trayvon neared his fam­ ily’s house, Zimmerman shot the youth through the heart—killing him.

Zimmerman was not taken into custody after killing Martin, and the police did not retain his gun for analy­ sis; Zimmerman was allowed to return home with his weapon. The killer remained free for weeks without having been charged with a crime—until mass pro­ tests forced prosecutors to indict him.

Once at trial, however, the court refused to allow the key issue of racial profiling to be examined. This would have had a crucial bearing on determining why Zimmerman had stalked Martin. And so, the jurors never got to hear the fact that ‘Witness 9,” a cousin of Zimmerman, had told a Sanford, Fla., police officer fol­ lowing the shooting, “I know George. And I know that he does not like Black people, and would start some­ thing.”

Instead, Zimmerman’s attorneys were given full lee­ way to build their case on the allegation that their client had killed Trayvon in self-defense, a stance that was bolstered by Florida’s onerous “stand-yourground” law. The judge denied the prosecution’s mo­ tion to instruct the jury that it could consider whether Zimmerman, contrary to his claim of self-defense, had provoked the incident as the “first aggressor.” Perti­ nent to this issue was the fact that witness Rachel Je­ antel had testified that Martin told her from his cell phone that he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.”

In order to sway the jury, defense attorneys tried to make the victim of the shooting appear to be the villain, as if Trayvon had somehow pulled the trigger! Spurious evidence was entered (Above) Thousands march up Broadway in New York to protest acquittal of Martin’s killer, July 14.

thousands of people who during the past 17 months had demonstrated and signed petitions for justice— many avowing, “I am Trayvon!”

President Obama, on the other hand, took the op­ portunity to piously declare, “We are a nation of laws, and the jury has spoken.” Obama sought to deflect the mass outrage over the verdict into an abstract discus­ sion about “gun violence.”

The president chose to ignore the fact that “gun vio­ lence” in the United State is used as a code word al­ lowing police forces to profile and entrap young Black men in “stop and frisk” operations. The real perpetra­ tors of “gun violence” are commonly the police them­ selves. The explosive growth of the national security and surveillance industry, especially since 9/11, has only increased the danger of violence toward young Black men.

In July 2012, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement produced a report showing that police and other gov­ ernmental forces kill a Black man at the rate of one every 28 hours. This rate mirrors the high percentage of Blacks in the U.S. prison system—70 percent of the prison population is non-white; 9.2 percent of African Americans are under correctional control. It is these conditions that sustain and encourage gun-packing vigilantes, wannabe cops, like George Zimmerman. n