White conservatives often criticize Black people for being too quick to play what they call "the race card." On the other hand, many Black people criticize America for not being sensitive enough to the reality that race plays in American life. George Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin clearly validates the Black community’s point of view.

Trayvon Martin is dead for no other reason than he was born Black in America. That’s a non-debatable fact. Had he been a White kid, Trayvon would have still been alive today. Yet, even as the jury is out deliberating Zimmerman’s fate, there’s a raging debate going on in America over whether or not Zimmerman was justified in taking this mere child’s life.
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Regardless to the eventual verdict in this case, the trial itself clearly demonstrates how the laws of the land are routinely bent against the interest of the Black community while still managing to maintain the illusion of justice for all.
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The bottom line is, Trayvon Martin was guilty of absolutely nothing. He was simply engaged in an activity that millions of kids - good kids - engage in all across this country on a daily basis. He wasn’t casing the neighborhood in preparation to commit a crime, he wasn’t walking down the street smoking dope, nor was he walking the street in search of a potential victim. He was simply an innocent kid on his way home after going to the store to buy a bag of Skiddles and a soft drink. So how, in a just society, can he end up dead, and his killer - an armed adult, who stalked him, and outweighed him by forty pounds - can now be claiming self-defense in his murder? The very scenario strains credulity to the limit.
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One would think the facts above would be crystal clear to every single person in America - and they would be if the situation was exactly reversed. If Trayvon Martin had been the adult in this scenario, and he stalked and killed a White kid under the exact same circumstances - if he stalked the kid, weighed forty pounds more than his victim, and he was armed while the kid was not - chances are, he would already be on Death Row for First Degree Murder - that is, assuming he survived to reach the police station.
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In addition, what many are failing to realize is, by trying to bend the law to accommodate their racism they're cutting their own throats. You see, many people think an assault is a physical attack, but that's not true. An assault is simply putting a person in fear of bodily harm? So what most people think of as an assault - physically attacking someone - is actually an assault and battery. So when Zimmerman confronted Trayvon and made him fear for his well being, that constituted an assault. Therefore, he committed a crime against Trayvon, and Trayvon had every right to defend himself. So if Trayvon would have had a gun and shot Zimmerman he would have been well within his rights. Thus, if Zimmerman is found not guilty, that will set a precedent saying that if a guy tries to rob you and you fight back, he has a right to kill you in self-defense.
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While one might say, that doesn't apply since the guy is engaged in a  criminal act, who will be around to attest to that?  Just like Trayvon, you'll be dead, so there will only be the criminal's word for what took place. Therefore, if Zimmerman is found not guilty of this grievous crime, it will not only be a slap in the face of justice, Trayvon Martin, and the Black community, but it'll be an assault on the personal security of every American across this land.  In fact, it may even give criminals an incentive to kill in order to cover-up their crimes.
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That's a high price to pay to accommodate racism, but in spite of that, I don’t take the position that all White people are malevolent, nor am I one who's prone to looking under every rock for the existence of racism whenever Black people don’t get their way. I do, however, stand firm in the belief that racism is such an historically pervasive part of American life that many Americans - both Black and White - harbor grossly racist attitudes towards Black people that are so deeply ingrained that they don’t even recognize it themselves.
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You don’t think so? Watch any hip hop video and count the number of beautiful dark-skinned sisters you find. I guarantee you, you’ll find very few - and even when a dark-skinned sister is so strikingly beautiful that they can’t avoid using her, they’ll usually shine a light on her to make her look orange.
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So I reiterate, Trayvon Martin is dead due to the gross racism of a grossly racist society - Period.
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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
[email protected]
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.