Quote of the Day - The Tragedy Of Trayvon

Yes, the picture is graphic, but this is what murder looks like

Among all of our friends that we socialized with today, not a one was pleased with the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.  Many hoped that Zimmerman would be hit with a successful civil lawsuit and some expected that no one outside of Teabagistan would ever hire him and expose their business to adverse consequences.  But to me, the message is clear: the South has changed far less than many would like to believe, especially on issues of race.  Bigotry is rampant - here in Virginia, white Republicans are pushing for voter ID laws to disenfranchise blacks and other non-whites, and favor "stand your ground" laws.  Andrew Sullivan summed things up well:

I found the way in which many elements on the right brandished their relish at seeing Zimmerman vindicated was more repellent than the identity politics faction that politicized the case. A young black man was dead, after he was clearly racially profiled, followed and challenged. Those facts alone should, in my view, lead to nothing but sadness, not a gleeful turn on the racial merry-go-round.

I didn’t follow the trial that closely largely because of that. There’s no way any of us can know precisely what happened in that violent interaction, except that Zimmerman clearly made a decision that led directly to it. But when an all-white jury in America finds a “white” man innocent of killing an unarmed black man, the resonances are simply undeniable.

The “stand-your-ground” law – when it interacts with race – can come perilously close to a return to the right to lynch black men in America- for being be in the wrong place at the wrong time, for doing nothing wrong, except wearing a hoodie and carrying some Skittles. Perhaps the best way to react now is to raise awareness about these laws that all but sanction murder because in a one-on-one conflict, in which there are no reliable witnesses and in which one of the individuals is dead, reasonable doubt is a very hard hurdle to overcome. This verdict may give some racist vigilantes encouragement to single out and murder black men with a sense of impunity. That is simply unacceptable, to put it mildly. It is a terrifying reminder of how the past can become present again.

Today is not a day that I am proud to be an American or a Southerner.  Some say we need to respect the verdict of the jury.  I'm not one of them.  Having practiced law for over 35 years, miscarriages of justice are the norm in our legal system - especially if one is a minority of any form.