On Feb. 26, George Zimmerman, “a volunteer neighborhood watch member,” shot and killed Trayvon Martin – an unarmed Florida teenager. Zimmerman has not been charged with a crime, because he claimed that he shot Trayvon in self-defense. But the shooting has spurred outrage among Americans who feel that Zimmerman has literally gotten away with murder.
Trayvon’s death has me outraged, and that’s why I just joined a Facebook group called “Justice for Trayvon.” I just wonder what kind of “justice” this group has in mind, because justice has taken on a perverse meaning in our culture. It has come to mean retribution and revenge.
However, retribution and revenge will not put an end to the mindset that led Zimmerman to kill Trayvon. Granted, Zimmerman demonstrated he is apparently a dangerous, if not mentally unstable, person, and he should not be able to walk the streets because of the threat he poses to others.
It’s just that my thoughts keep going back to Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s mother, who said, “Our son is your son.” I didn’t know Trayvon, but he is part of an America that I’m part of, which makes him part of my family. However, Zimmerman is part of that America, too, so he is also part of my family. As much as we’d like to think of Zimmerman as being separate from ourselves, he did not act alone. Perhaps we are reacting so strongly to Zimmerman because looking at him is like looking in a mirror.
Crimes like Zimmerman’s do not occur in a vacuum; they occur because the fa?ade of civil society crumbles and our sins reveal themselves. Look at the Jim Crow-era South, where a lynching wasn’t the act of individuals but an integral part of a warped society. Similarly, Zimmerman’s crimes come from an America focused on violence, fear and power.
When teachers tell school children not to be bullies, they
are ignoring the example that America sets when it wages imperialist wars and
invests in prisons-all in the name of protecting these children. But how can
Americans begin to end their antisocial ways when their country bullies on
their behalf? Zimmerman is a bully, but he is also the product of the America that
he lives in.
The America that Zimmerman lives in is paranoid and angry, and so is he. Zimmerman is probably that way regardless of what America does, but his disturbed thinking went unnoticed until he murdered Trayvon. Perhaps Zimmerman’s ways would have been more conspicuous if anger and paranoia weren’t endemic to America.
James Baldwin put it best, when he wrote that “The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer.” Baldwin recognized that America and Americans take on an ugly shape when they concern themselves with vengeance and hate.
However, we want justice for Trayvon, which means we want to see Zimmerman jailed or executed. We think once that happens America will have one less menace among us. But we fail to understand that justice is not a jail or an execution. Justice is love.
Jeff Schultz ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history.