What Next?

by | Jul 23, 2013 | Blog | 0 comments

So as I watch the protesta03-v2-trayvon-29-4_3 and the marches which seem to be becoming more and more about getting George Zimmerman and less and less about address the series of circumstances that cause and allowed this tragedy to take place to begin with.   I am forced to ask myself and my people who are understandably frustrated and angered by this event (emotions that I share just as strongly as the next person); What Next?

Let’s say GZ goes to trial and is found guilty of violating TM’s civil rights, what next?  Does it die right there, will we have Sharpton and Jackson, Jealous and Alexander, his Mom and Dad, Obama and Michelle, stand up in front of a sea of Black Americans and proclaim victory only to return to the same conditions that they were in before?  If He goes free will we have those same people promise us that they will continue to fight and speak out while sending us back to the same condition we were in before?

On the other side, what happens when SYG is repealed?  Is that the victory we are looking for?  Because if it is only about this law and if you believe that this law is the only thing that has allowed blacks to be murdered while the killers go home free, then history has a bunch of stories that you won’t like.  Laws and policies can be reworded, introduced, and destroyed in a few days but does that really change anything?  If you say the problem is the system then is it productive to run to that system and tell it to fix itself without outlining the real problems or offering real solutions? 

On the matter of SYG is there a way that this law can be beneficial for the community?  Is there a reason why out of all the black people murdered by whites and other blacks, this one has come to the forefront?  If SYG wasn’t in place would TM still be alive, or was he killed because he was profiled?  Haven’t we always had the right to defend ourselves? 

But in all this I keep asking myself what is the end goal?  As all the old horses have come out from whatever remote edges of the world they have been in to fight the good fight for Trayvon Martin, what are they fighting for?  What is the plan?  Again I am just as frustrated as everyone else about what happened, but I have to think about what is happening and ask some serious questions about the direction we are going.  Especially when I talk to a group of young black men and none of them know the story of Emmett Till, have read SYG, or are even aware that they are more likely to be killed by each other than GZ and still have the killer get off. 

So I ask you all the same questions, Quick Questions, What do we feel will happen once stand your ground is repealed? Is that the end goal of the movement? Are there ways that this law can be beneficial to our community? Is this being used as another way to bump up support for gun control?  Is this a diversion to distract us from the looming financial crisis or other impending doom?  What do you think?

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