Aquittal and privelage.
Well, Mr. Zimmerman is off the hook. Six citizens good and true determined that the prosecution failed to make it's case. I can understand how they came to that decision, but I don't like it or agree with it. I think I know what happened that night.
Trayvon Martin was minding his own business, not bothering anybody. He was young and impetuous, perhaps even foolhardy in temperament, qualities not unusual in young men and under more favorable circumstances can become heroism. But at the moment he was spied by George Zimmerman all he really wanted was something to eat. Zimmerman's ambitions ran to something more.
Zimmerman, through his fumbling association with law enforcement, martial arts, community service and weapons, reveals a disregard for anything like civic duty but rather a desire for the exercise of power to support privilege. His father was a minor functionary in the legal system, able to be referred to as a "magistrate" but without the power usually associated with that title. While his father may have, and probably did, discharge his duties as honorably as anyone, it is sometimes the nature of the sons of those with even a little power to be infatuated with the trappings of it than the responsibilities associated with its exercise. George's incessant calling of emergency services to report suspicious activity seems to have less to do with the defense of private property and more to do with the ingratiation of himself with the local police force.
Zimmerman, through his infatuation with the trappings of power, claimed privilege which he did not earn or deserve. He is a grasping toady and a bully who doesn't feel bound by the concept of civil behavior beyond how it can be used to curry favor with those who can feed his ego through praise, or others who could do the same through fear.
The night Trayvon Martin died he was confronted with the trappings of privilege in the service of George Zimmerman's petty egotistical desires. The trappings of privilege - property, a vehicle, race, a gun - were used to cruel effect to attempt to harass and intimidate the youth. Martin was harassed but not intimidated in the least. Had Zimmerman not shot him Martin would probably have pounded him into the ground then and there.
But we can't prove it. There is ample evidence of hate and fear, avarice and jealousy, but we have no actual evidence of how they were used as a fulcrum for injustice. And the tragedy of our ignorance makes a mockery of the law.
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