Time to Demand Justice

Commentary: Trayvon Martin case underscores parents' need to demand justice
The Journal News  -  OPINION  -  March 26, 2012

Trayvon Martin, 17, was shot to death Feb. 26 by a neighborhood watch leader in Sanford, a small, gated Florida community. Martin left his father’s home to buy candy and iced tea for his little brother at a nearby 7-Eleven. The young black man was walking back — wearing a hoodie in the rain — when George Zimmerman spotted him and called police to report a “suspicious person.” Against the advice of the 911 dispatcher, Zimmerman followed Martin. Zimmerman told the Sanford police that he shot the teen in self-defense because he was fearful for his life, in accordance with Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law.  The case has stirred demonstrations, with marchers wearing hoodies, carrying bags of Skittles and cans of ice tea, as Martin was when he was killed; probes into local police inaction and botched investigation in the face of a deadly shooting; and examinations of the relationship between young black men and law enforcement.  “I’ve always let him know we as African Americans get stereotyped,” Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s mother, told USA Today. “I told him that society is cruel.”  This is a parent’s worst nightmare: Your child fails to return home and you find out from law enforcement it is because he has been gunned down allegedly by the local neighborhood watch vigilante. To compound matters, you listen helplessly as he cries out for help on a 911 call seconds before the shooting. This is the reality for the parents of Trayvon Martin.  Martin’s only “crime” was walking while black in Sanford, Fla. And that was enough to cost him his life.  The truth of the matter is Martin has had a target on his back since he came into the world. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, black men die at a rate that is at least 1.5 times the rate of young white and Hispanic men, and almost three times the rate of young Asian men. For young black men, the leading cause of death is homicide.  In our society, there are very few choices for many black men and boys. It’s either prison, where they represent more than 40 percent of inmates, or the cemetery. And those who do manage to dodge the prison or the morgue are often treated as rare specimens or idolized, like President Barack Obama.

Wake-up call

The media don’t help matters. The portrayal of black men as violent criminals, thugs and vagrants paves the way for acts such as the one perpetrated against Martin. The shooting of Martin should be a wake-up call to our collective moral consciousness. It is not OK to criminalize and demonize children.  The person who killed Martin should be arrested and charged. It’s appalling that this hasn’t happened in the three weeks since the shooting.  We must rise up as parents, concerned citizens and moral communities. We must insist upon justice, regardless of race or background. And we must offer all American children the opportunity to reach their full potential.  The writer is an assistant research professor and the executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.