Reflections on Trayvon Martin

Regardless of the color of your skin, the death of Trayvon Martin is your concern. It’s not a black issue. It is a justice issue. It is a freedom issue. It is a people issue.

Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was walking home from a nearby store in his father’s gated community with a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea when he caught the attention of George Zimmerman, an armed self-appointed neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla.
Zimmerman proceeded to call 911, telling the dispatcher that Martin looked “suspicious and was up to no good.”

The dispatcher directed Zimmerman not to pursue the boy as officials were on their way. He ignored those orders, followed Martin up the street, and five minutes later the boy lay dead with a gunshot to the chest.

Martin had Skittles; Zimmerman had a 9-millimeter handgun. Martin was black; Zimmerman is white Hispanic.

That was on Feb. 26 — almost an entire month before mainstream media outlets picked up the story.

Authorities ruled that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense and let him walk.

Under Florida’s lenient “Stand Your Ground” law, anyone who feels that another person is threatening his or her life can use deadly force without fear of being charged with a crime.

Martin’s body was placed in a morgue under the name John Doe. The next day, his father contacted the police department and was notified that his son had been shot and killed the day before.

There are a number of questions that need to be answered. What was so suspicious about Trayvon? Why was a neighborhood watchman carrying a 9-millimeter handgun? Why didn’t officials check Martin’s body for ID?

If Zimmerman was the one in pursuit, how was this a case of self-defense? Why did Zimmerman disobey the 911 dispatcher’s orders?

And most importantly, why is Zimmerman still a free man?
Whatever the answers, Trayvon Martin is dead because he “looked suspicious.”

No one should have to live not knowing if his justice system will protect him from getting shot while walking to or from the corner store.

For the black community, Martin’s murder is especially horrifying. His death represents the fear that we have for our fathers, brothers, sons and boyfriends.

This injustice has ramifications for UNC, too. This December, UNC junior Cameron Horne was handcufffed and held at gunpoint by Chapel Hill police after he was mistaken for a suspect whose profile he did not fit.

Clearly, the same sort of prejudices that led to Martin’s death exist outside of Sanford, Fla. What happened to Horne is a manifestation of the same thought processes that have allowed Zimmerman to remain untouched, at least thus far.

As Eric Campbell, president of the Black Student Movement, noted in a recent column in The Daily Tar Heel, black males already feel unequal in society. Incidents like Martin’s death only exacerbate these sentiments.

His death is a testament not only to the blatant racism that still exists in our society, but to the flaws in the institutions upon which our country was built.

We have yet to live in a post-racial America, regardless of how progressive we claim to be.

And UNC, too, still has a long way to go.

Racism continues to persist in our institutions and social interactions. It exists in classrooms and dining halls, campus publications and social organizations.

Ignoring the elephant in the room doesn’t make it disappear. The sooner everyone admits this unfortunate reality, the sooner we can work — together — to end it.