That may well be. It's good that he feels remorse. But that does not change the fact that he took it upon himself -- in direct opposition to instructions from the 911 operator not to follow but to wait for the police -- to go after a young black man who "looked suspicious."
If we believe Trayvon's girl friend, who was on the phone with him at the time Zimmerman followed and then attacked him, Trayvon was frightened of this man following him and he only wanted to get away from him. It doesn't matter whether he was black or white. He still was shot by a man who jumped to wrong conclusions and took it upon himself to attack.
And of course it does also matter that he was a black youth in a hoodie because -- whether Zimmerman harbors racial prejudice or not -- he was suspicious of Trayvon because he is black and presumably did not "belong" in this neighborhood which has recently had several home break-ins -- presumably, and perhaps correctly, by young black men.
So Zimmerman's seeing Trayvon as "looking suspicious," as he told the 911 operator, was no doubt influenced by the fact that he was black. It's still possible that he has no ill feelings toward blacks -- and still was stereotyping Trayvon because he is black. Were the recent break-ins done by black men? I don't know. If they were, does this make Zimmerman a racist for suspecting a young black man?
Let's not let race cloud what is really a different issue here. Black or white, brown or yellow, it was an unnecessary death caused by a (perhaps) well-meaning, but trigger-happy, vigilante.
We do not need frontier justice here in modern, suburban America -- with police on the way. No one was in immediate danger except Trayvon himself, being stalked by a man with a gun. Zimmerman was in the wrong, and the tragic death of Trayvon should not have happened. Zimmerman must be held accountable.
Ralph
This tragic story of Trayvon's killing is generating international press, drawing similarities to Emmett Till's 1955 murder in Mississippi.
ReplyDeleteEmmett`s articulate and assertive mother, Mamie Till Bradley spoke out and a grass roots movement began to emerge. Wikipeda accredits this historical moment as the "pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement....since 1882, when statistics on lynchings began to be collected, more than 500 African-Americans had been killed by extrajudicial violence in Mississippi alone.``
Whether or not Trayvon`s death will trigger another ground swell of civil rights has yet to be seen. An impartial inquiry and justice must be served.