THIS IS SOME BULL$#!+: Yes, The Murder of Trayvon Martin is About You

This goes beyond skin color or politics.  This is about the joys of life, and the notion that all of us should have unfettered access to those joys as long as we are not harming anyone else.

No, he wasn’t your son.

It wasn’t your son that was murdered simply because he happened to be wearing black skin when he was walking from the store.  Maybe you don’t even have a son; furthermore, statistically, chances are that if you do have a son, your son probably doesn’t have black skin.  Therefore, it is simply impossible for your son to be in this situation.

But it’s not about whether it was your son.

Perhaps you don’t even like black people.  No, no, no, I’m not judging you—don’t get defensive.  Nowadays, everybody thinks that they have to like everybody; I know it’s politically correct to say that you like black people, that some of your best are black (or Mexican or Asian or Native American or Autistic or homosexual).  But especially black—black folks seem to be the litmus test for political correctness.

But I don’t even care if you like black people or Mexicans or Asians or Native Americans—nobody says that you have to.  Who cares?  Everybody has preconceived notions about other groups of people; for example, I freely admit that if we were playing a pick-up basketball, Jeremy Lin wouldn’t be one of my top picks (and, of course, he would promptly dunk on me in the most egregious fashions known to man).

We all have our own little preferences and prejudices—no big deal.  Heck, a lot of black people don’t even like black people; ask Chris Rock.  Ask my good friend Jonesey—a Harlem black cat who takes pride in dressing nice and “getting his grown man on,” he hates seeing young black men sagging their pants.

Says it reflects badly on the race.  The notion that certain choice members of a racial group can “reflect badly on a race” is not politically correct.  But it’s honest and real and often thought (even if it’s not spoken), like my choice not to choose Jeremy Lin on my basketball team because we don’t often see Asians playing basketball at such an incredibly high level.

Thus, this has nothing to do with whether or not you like black folks.  It has nothing to do with political correctness.

It has to do with life.  And death.  And a mom that is never going to be able to hug her son again.  She will never be able to exercise her God-given right to holler at her 17 year old son to wash the dishes or to clean up his room again.  She will never be able to see him learn from his mistakes again—to see him go through his first love and want to console his first heartache, but he pridefully won’t let her console him.  His mom won’t get to see her son looking at the caller ID on his cell phone every 3 minutes, waiting for the girl that he just broke up with to call him back nor see the confusion in his eyes (and hear it in his voice) when she doesn’t call him back.  She won’t get an opportunity to hold her daughter-in-law’s hand in the delivery room as the daughter-in-law gives birth to her first grandchild.  She will not have the opportunity to spoil that grandchild rotten—give her ice cream and apples—and then send her back home to her parents, like any good grandparent does.  Like my grandparents did.  And yours.

Trayvon’s Martin’s mother won’t be able to do any of that, and that’s what we all should be angry about.

It’s not that a black boy got shot and murdered, or that a shoot-first racist killed him that should burn all of us up.  Instead, we should all be angry—violently, pissed-off, scarily angry—that a child, regardless of color, was taken off this earth for no good reason and it literally could be any one of us that are feeling the pain that this mother feels today.  He didn’t ask for this.  She didn’t ask for this—they were both minding their business, living their lives not harming anyone.  This isn’t about black or white or Native or Mexican or whatever.  This is about life, and this is about our kids.  My son is only 5, with long, bushy hair and looks nothing like Trayvon—still, the thought of someone doing this to him obviously breaks my heart.  I’m sure the thought of it happening to your child does the same to you.

That’s what should make us mad and make us take action—there is no one “right” action, just take some action.  Go to change.org.  Blow up the Seminole County prosecuting attorney’s phone line and demand that he prosecute this as a hate crime/murder.  Call the US Department of Justice.  Call your senator.  Seriously.  ALL of them—prosecuting attorneys, senators, mayors are all public officials and WILL respond when they know that there is a movement in place to get them out of office unless they respond.  Let them know that we will not stand by while innocent people are the victims of deprivations of civil and human rights—not just with Trayvon, but anytime.  We need a Nationwide Neighborhood Watch to prevent us—the poor, the minority, the powerless people of every color—from ever feeling powerless and victimized in our own lands again.  This should be the catalyst #NeverAgain #TrayvonMartin #WereAllInThisTogether