Trayvon Martin and the reality of 'Race'

My oldest son called me the night the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict was read. He was upset, and with tears in voice he told me for the first time in his life he truly felt invisible. That his life as a Black and Xicano man living in this country – meant nothing he said. I told him I wished I could tell him I thought he was wrong. But truthfully, I said, I have no words of comfort to offer. 

I could only encouraged him to become a bigger part of the solution. I pushed him to continue learning, reading and studying. To recognize this murder and the verdict are about white privilege not white skin. That George Zimmerman may have pulled the trigger ending Trayvon Martin’s life is but he is simply a line of code in the program of oppression that has written the lives of Africans, Indigenous and poor peoples living in this country for the past 500 years.

We are, first and foremost, fighting a system privilege, of course that doesn't mean there are not individual enforcers of white privilege, it means that when we target just individuals and call for their heads only, and then feel justice has been served we are missing the important point of all.

Our struggle, the struggle to free humanity from a system of dehumanizing oppression like capitalism that reduces us all to distorted caricatures representing the fears and lies conjured to maintain social and economic control. These divisions have been and were created to bring into being the circumstances that allowed for the ongoing commoditization of humans beings. Capitalism has allowed us to create, maintain and accept these constructed differentiations in the value of life. This increases the wealth of those who perpetuate those divisions and establishes AN ARTIFICIAL ordering of the world that needs no explanation beyond the metaphysical acquisition of alleged attributes and qualities possessed by the superior and inferior “races.”

The suggestion that because Zimmerman’s mother is from Peru eliminates any implication of “racial” bias on his part is too obtuse to entertain. The very idea that there is a White Race, Black Race, Brown or Yellow is preposterous. It is pure science fiction – literally. Yet we repeat these ideas in every exchange we have – and let us be straight I'm not trying to preach any of that ‘I don't see color’ bullshit that really only the most conflicted of racists try to sling. No, what I am saying is that we are all human beings. That on some level we all share common goals of life, happiness or the right to exist. And we recognize as a species those very basic desires exist across the spectrum of humanity.

To my sons and daughters I have always said they must rise above the expectations of our society. That they must embrace and welcome into their hearts the truth they are no one’s flunky or stereotype. That they are in fact, change embodied in flesh and they have a responsibility, to humanity first, their chosen community second, to rise above the base, banal ideas others have about them – not to prove something to those who accuse others based on their own fears – but as an example of what we can be as a human beings when we freely pursue our own destinies, passions and path in life.

I am not ashamed to say I cried on the phone with my son that night. I am not ashamed to say when I heard how this man Zimmerman got his skull cracked by young Martin my heart raced at the young boy’s bravery. Trayvon Martin was fighting for his life against an unknown, armed assailant. Tragically, like the rest of us who struggle against this system of brutality – neither young Trayvon or most of you who will read this are the ones with the guns or the ‘authority’ to use them.

George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin in cold blood but the law says he acted legally. Let that be a lesson to all you believers in law. Law does not equal justice. Law equals social control. Law serves to protect the power of the state: the power of privilege.

We are not the state. Nor do we wield the power of the state. This state exists to serve the whims of the elite and their flunkies, their murderous flunkies. The power of the state was not designed to protect the disenfranchised or those who openly oppose corrupt power. The reality is those on the receiving end of that brutality are mostly unorganized to resist it, unorganized to understand the system of oppression that controls and manipulates their existence. How we choose to respond to this tragedy and the countless others transpiring on a daily basis will mark our path to submission or resistance for generations to come.

As we hung up that night I told my son I love him, to stay close to his family and his children. To make sure they understood how much he loved them and how important they are to our future. I thought about all the PEOPLE flooding out into the streets that night hoodies up for Trayvon Martin. I kept hearing in my head the lyrics to the ‘Guns of Brixton’ by The Clash “You can cut us, you can bruise us, but you’ll have to answer too” and it made my heart race again.