Trayvon Martin: What RFK Said
I live in Orlando, so a number of people have asked me what I think about the death of Trayvon Martin. Trayvon, a teenager, was shot dead by a "neighborhood watch" member as Trayvon was walking home from a convenience store. Trayvon was armed with nothing but a bottle of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. For me, it calls to mind the sentiments in the speech that Robert F. Kennedy gave from his heart on April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis, after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. This is what Robert F. Kennedy said: [br /]Ladies and Gentlemen, [br /]
I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some – some very sad news for all of you – Could you lower those signs, please? – I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee. [br /]
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black – considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible – you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge. [br /]
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization – black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love. [br /]
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. [br /]
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times. [br /]
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: [br /]
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God. [br /]
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. [br /]
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. [br /]
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we – and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder. [br /]
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land. [br /]
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. [br /]
Thank you very much. [br /]
Courage, [br /]
Alan Grayson [br /]
= new reply since forum marked as read
That if Trayvon had known about and followed MLK and non-violence, then he never would have attacked Zimmerman and gotten himself shot.
Is that what you are saying?
Wait, I hear a rumbling sound.
I think there is some "understanding, compassion and love" coming my way.
In the words of Jeff Goldblum "uhm - hide" 
If there is to be more understanding, compassion, and love in America, does that not extend to Zimmerman as well?
What about to people who try to make thought-provoking comments on the internets?
Simple-minded pop psychology from the 1970s perhaps, but I am reminded of the books I read in the 1980s. "I'm OK, you're OK". We tend to not believe that about the other. We, on each side of the political divide, have divided the country into tribes (or gangs, as I say - the Sharks and the Jets) Each side believes that people in the other tribe are "not OK". Rather than having understanding, love and compassion for people in the other tribe (or, worse yet, their accursed apologists) we look, instead, for ways to prove, to ourselves and our fellow tribespeople, that members of the other tribe are 'not OK'.
Zimmerman, as every decent person should understand it, is not OK. He's not, he cannot possibly be, a well-intentioned decent fellow who volunteered his own time and risked his personal safety in order to keep himself and his neighbors safe from home break-ins, and who, in a massively unfortunate incident, ended the life of a decent young kid.
Nope, he is not OK. He's a racist fool, pathetic coward, piece of useless walking human crap, mostly out there looking for an excuse to kill black people.
And me? Heck, I am not OK either. I am just a troll, creating liberal-bashing straw-men, a racist or racist-enabling "sensible moderate woodchuck" who has never been on the side of the Jets (er, I mean angels). Anybody who tries to talk reason to the virtual lynch mob, needs to be virtually strung up too.
It's a dog eat dog discussion board and I am wearing milk bone underwear.
