“I demand justice for Trayvon Martin! Sanford PD should be ashamed of themselves.”

[Via AckbarSays]  On March 19, 2012, those were the first words I ever vocalized in regard to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.  I had been driving home that day from a long day on the road, and while listening to my satellite radio, I heard for the first time the story of this young, 17 year old, unarmed kid who was walking home from the store, minding his own business, carrying nothing but a can of iced tea and some Skittles that he’d bought for his younger brother during a trip to 7-Eleven at halftime of the NBA All-Star game on February 26th.

I was shocked to hear that the white vigilante named George Zimmerman who had shot him had still not been arrested for his crime.  It made my blood boil, and I was determined that I was going to let my thousand-member social media friends list know how upset I was in hopes that it would spur some of them to demand action as well.

In the days that followed, I went onto a message board that I frequent, and I was incensed to find that the conservative cohorts that I so enjoyed discussing life and politics with were jumping to the aid of George Zimmerman.  “How can that be?” I thought – it’s so obvious that Zimmerman was at fault.  It’s important to note that some of you reading this stopped a sentence back and wondered to yourself how I could be surprised that conservatives (or Republicans) would jump to support a white guy who had killed a black kid.  Let me just say right here that if that is your worldview – if you believe conservatives and Republicans are racists who want to see black people dead – you should just move along now.  It’s an old and tired meme, and it’s simply not true.  THAT’s why I was so upset about what I saw as a clear sign that there were a few contributors on that board that appeared to be outright racists.

I argued with those people until I was literally blue in the face.  Trayvon Martin had a voice on that website in those next seven days.  It was my voice speaking for him, and I called some people some nasty names and accused them of having some really ugly thoughts.  They stood their ground, though (my use of that term was not intended to be a pun), and after a week, someone (I honestly don’t remember who it was) convinced me that I should at least explore a couple of websites that might show me that I wasn’t getting all of the information that I needed in order to make an informed decision.

At this point, I don’t remember for sure how I ended up making the connections, but I am pretty sure that I first encountered a timeline at a website called wagist.com.  There was some information there that didn’t quite match up with what I thought I knew based on the reports that were in the media every night.  Seeking more, I found a site called The Conservative Treehouse.  It was there that I encountered update after update after update on this case, most of them authored by someone named “Sundance.”  These posts were extraordinarily well-researched and documented.  It was so shocking to read some of those early updates.  I believe that I arrived at the Treehouse around the time of update 9 or update 10 on this case, and I read all of the previous updates in order.  Back in those days, Sundance was putting out a new update every day or two, and the information presented and the comments that followed were just a complete eye-opener for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew all about the Tawana Brawley incident and the Duke Lacrosse case, both examples of race-hustlers manufacturing racially-charged incidents in order to increase their power and enrich their bank accounts, but I just didn’t think that was what was going on here.  Not in Florida.  Not in 2012.

Growing up in the State of Florida in the 1970’s, I was raised to believe in the concepts of right and wrong, and to always see the good in other people.  Sure, I grew up in a “white” neighborhood, but I was always quick to make friends with the black kids I went to school with.  I can remember specific kids, like Antwan, who I’ve known since kindergarten, and who I still occasionally see around town here, and Rod, who I played football with in junior high school.  He used to come home with me before football games so that we could eat dinner and swim in our pool.

I remember having conversations with Rod where he would talk to me about how different the act of swimming was for black people, because their bodies were denser, making it harder for them to float.   I have no idea at all if that is true.  The “adult me” kind of doubts it, although it is possible to find some people who make that claim through a quick Google search.  I don’t mention that to get into a debate about that issue – just as an example of the innocence with which I approached the “racial divide.”

There was no divide to me – Rod and Antwan were just kids that I liked and admired and enjoyed talking to.  I was probably most intrigued when talking about our differences, because other than the obvious fact that they were darker skinned than I was and sometimes maybe talked a little differently, I didn’t really see much that was different. (continue reading)