Moments after the verdict was read in the George Zimmerman murder trial, I poured out my feelings in social media like millions of people around the world.
“The veil of racial progress in America has been lifted from the world’s eyes tonight,” I typed, staring injustice in its ugly face.
Trayvon Martin, the jury told us, caused his own death. Zimmerman, who racially profiled, disobeyed police, killed an unarmed teenager, and left the murder scene without any major injuries, cannot be blamed and punished for it. How anyone could reach this conclusion is beyond the pale of common sense. But common sense rarely appears and sits next to racism in America.
In the aftermath of the verdict, some pundits are pointing to the prosecution’s conscious decision to take racism, or more precisely racial profiling, off the table of arguments. And many conscious Americans are nodding their heads in agreement. I am nodding too, but nodding to a point.
Asking these state prosecutors to talk about racial profiling is akin to asking George Zimmerman to take the stand and indict himself. That’s a pipe dream. Both were never an option, dooming the cause of justice from the start. And as the case dragged us along, the rugged and heartless self-interest of Zimmerman’s lies and Florida’s decision to hide racial profiling slapped us all in the face, day after day.
Malcolm X once thundered, “You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to court.”
Florida state prosecutors, like prosecutors around the nation, are the overlords of a justice system based on racial profiling. They probably saw no problem in Zimmerman’s initial thoughts. Like you and I are Trayvon Martin, they are George Zimmerman. These prosecutors probably racially profile every day. The police officers, the judges they work with racially profile every day. They are not going to crucify themselves. They are not going to define and publicize the pervasiveness of racial profiling in Florida with the entire world watching. They refused to prosecute Florida, prosecute themselves.
