The nation has been riveted by the Trayvon Martin case. Everyone seems to know the basic facts of the case, so I won’t bore you by droning on with a case timeline.
As I sat in my political science class, I heard the “Rally for Trayvon” group marching and chanting down President Street.
I’m all for a good rally for justice, but when I began to hear chants about stopping “racism” I was alarmed and angered. The Trayvon Martin atrocity was not about race; it was about the slaying of a 17-year-old boy in a community in Florida. It seems the media has spun this story into armed white man versus black teenager.
George Zimmerman is Latino, his mother is from Peru — not that it should matter — so he’s technically not even white. He has gone into hiding, the New Black Panthers have put a bounty on his head, and celebrities have been tweeting his address — the wrong one(s). The death of an innocent teenager is being turned into a racial battlefield, and it’s ridiculous.
So let me ask the question no one else will ask. Is there a double standard in America when it comes to race and crimes? Where were the marches on St. Patrick’s Day weekend?
49 people were shot in 48 hours, including a 6-year-old girl on a front porch in Chicago. Statistics seem to support that the biggest threat to a black male on the streets is another black male. So why does black-on-black crime not receive the type of attention that this case did? Racism has turned into an industry in the U.S.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are leading the charge on the racism and just as the United States was paranoid about the communists in the 1950s, today we have paranoia about race. People have a right to be outraged by the Trayvon Martin case, but the bigots who have turned this case into an issue of race have done this country a disservice.
In no way does the murder of an innocent teenager equate to racism. This case was minority on minority anyway — not that it should matter.
I think justice will be served in this case (eventually) but not because of race. It will be served because this case involves the slaying of a teenager in a relatively safe and middle-class neighborhood.
Lay off of the issue of race and look at the facts of the case.
Keith Wilbur is a freshman studying economics and political science.
