In the trial of Trayvon, the US is guilty

[Sunlei]

Opinion, by Sarah Kendzior Sarah Kendzior is an anthropologist who recently received her PhD from Washington University in St Louis.


................"Trayvon Martin is dead and the man who killed him walks free. Americans are afraid there will be riots, like there were after the King verdict in 1992. But we should not fear riots. We should fear a society that puts people on trial the day they are born. And after they die.

Over the past few decades, the US has turned into a country where the circumstances into which you are born increasingly determine who you can become. Social mobility has stalled as wages stagnate and the cost of living soars. Exponential increases in university tuition have erased the possibility of education as a path out of poverty. These are not revelations - these are hard limitations faced by most Americans. But when confronted with systematic social and economic discrimination, even on a massive scale, the individual is often blamed. The poor, the unemployed, the lacking are vilified for the things they lack.

One might assume that rising privation would increase public empathy toward minorities long denied a semblance of a fair shot. But instead, overt racism and racial barriers in America have increased since the recession. Denied by the Supreme Court, invalidated in the eyes of many by the election of a black president, racism erases the individual until the individual is dead, where he is then recast as the enemy.

Trayvon Martin was vilified for being "Trayvon Martin". If he were considered a fully human being, a person of inherent worth, it would be the US on trial. For its denial of opportunity, for its ceaseless condemnation of the suffering, for its demonization of the people it abandons, for its shifting gaze from the burden of proof. The Trayvon Martin case only sanctioned what was once tacit and disavowed. A young black man can be murdered on perception. A young black man becomes the criminal so that the real criminal can go free.

Americans should not fear riots. They should fear a society that ranks the death of children. They should fear a society that shrugs, carries on, and lets them go................."

full article http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201371495445953104.html

[John2]

1. I agree with

her intellectual insight on this issue. Trayvon Martin ended up the person on trial, and his rights to defend himself against a predator like Zimmerman was denied. What if Trayvon had the gun and Zimmerman had nothing but his hands to fight off Trayvon for following him at night. All Trayvon would have done is get off one shot, and Zimmerman would likely be dead. All Trayvon had to do was claim Zimmerman was beating him to Death after he followed him, because he looked suspicious at night and it was raining.