Trayvon Martin has really been weighing heavily on my mind.
I thought of him as I watched my daughter and her little elementary school classmates recite their winning oratories at their Speech Meet earlier this week. I sat there thinking that what happened to Trayvon could happen to any one of those little Black boys (or girls) standing onstage reciting their poems and fables.
It’s been almost three weeks since Trayvon was gunned down in Sanford, Fla.
The 17-year-old Black youth was returning to the home of a relative in a gated community, no doubt looking forward to the second half of the NBA All-Star game, armed with a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona Tea.
He and his sugary snacks would be no match for the 9 mm handgun wielded by the admitted shooter, George Zimmerman, the self-appointed 28-year-old White “neighborhood watch captain.”
For no apparent reason — other than race, and the fact that Trayvon wore a hood to shield his head from the early evening rain — Zimmerman deemed the Black teenager “suspicious” and called police, who advised him not to approach the young man.
When the authorities arrived moments later, Zimmerman, 9 mm in hand, was standing over Martin’s lifeless body. Trayvon had been shot in the chest, point blank, by the man now being called a “loose cannon” and a “vigilante.”
