In light of widespread public attention and outcry over the shooting deaths of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin of Florida and 20-year-old Bo Morrison in Slinger, Wis., earlier this month, members of the Madison community gathered on Library Mall Tuesday to push for racial equality.
A crowd of about 150 students, teachers and community members joined together in support of Martin and Morrison and to spread awareness about their views on the issue of social inequality in relation to both cases.
Martin, an African American, was shot and killed Feb. 26 by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, who has not been charged or arrested in the case. Zimmerman claimed self defense, though police reports show Martin was unarmed and carrying only a bag of skittles and an energy drinking while wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
Morrison was killed in Slinger, Wis. after a homeowner found Morrison hiding on a back porch. Adam Kind, the man who fatally shot Morrison, was not been charged in the shooting.
At the speak-out event, University of Wisconsin junior Tiffany Schroeder said Morrison was a close friend of hers, and she has felt frustrated as she feels the media has portrayed Morrison as a “young black criminal.”
She described the “baby Bo” she had known since age nine, and shared anecdotes of Morrison and his calming qualities including “giant bear hugs.”
“I never thought it would be like this. What has happened to Bo and Trayvon are extreme tragedies,” she said. “These boys need justice. We must not focus on the past; we must focus on the here and now. We must do what we can to make sure these young men haven’t died in vain.”
Christine Bohm, a friend of Morrison who attended the party in Slinger on the night of his death, expressed her feelings regarding the Castle Doctrine, which presumes people using deadly force against intruders are justified regardless of if the illegal trespasser is armed.
She said she feels the law circumvents a due process of law for the Morrison case.
“What this law does is give the next person in this situation the idea that killing is lawful and acceptable. It’s barbaric; it’s inhumane,” she said. “In both cases, these laws seem to have protected the wrong person. That’s 100 percent failure.”
Savance Ford, a 17-year-old African American student at Madison West High School, attended the rally and said he felt shocked upon hearing of Martin and Morrison’s killings.
Ford said his mother has not allowed him to go out alone in the past two weeks, despite their neighborhood’s safe reputation, for fear of violent discrimination because of his age, gender and race.
Jessica Kirstein, a graduate student at UW, cited the American Legislative Exchange Council as a prominent force that is affecting social legislation across the country, including the Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and Wisconsin’s Castle Doctrine.
“It is not coincidental that the same organization (ALEC) who wrote the legislation for “Stand Your Ground” in Florida, and the Castle law in Wisconsin is the same organization that wrote the noxious Arizona immigration law,” she said.
She urged those in attendance to consider this a divergence by the organization to obscure the problems involving unequal distribution of wealth and power, and that attendees need to pay attention to who is influencing government.
UW Ph.D. student of sociology Elizabeth Wrigley-Field encouraged the crowd to carefully consider social legislation and how it relates to trends in the U.S. criminal justice system.
“We see laws that are supposedly race-neutral actually have everything to do with race,” Wrigley-Field said. “The thing about racism in America is that it runs so deep in our institutions that when people finally stand against it to demand freedom, they can change the way whole generations see America and its democracy. Everything stands exposed.”
– The Associated Press contributed to this story
