Brothers on Trayvon

High-Profile Black Actors pay tribute to Trayvon Martin: "Little Black Boy Wonder"

A Prayer for George Zimmerman

For anyone who's been reading my blog recently, I'm sure the title of this post is a bit surprising.

But it's Sunday.

I have so many thoughts and feelings going through me right now.  But let me start with the Black Panther Party.

Most people don't know that the full name of the organization was "The Black Panther Party for Self Defense", which was originally conceived as a response to police brutality.  In addition to using California's open carry laws to defiantly confront law enforcement with their own weapons, people forget that the Panthers also feed the hungry, clothed the needy, and even organized schools for the children in their neighborhoods.

They forget because the sight of Huey Newton walking into the California State Assembly brandishing a shotgun overpowers any story about school lunches or clothing drives.

Guns have a tendency to do that.

If you'd like to know what happened to the Black Panthers, don't look at these impostors who are occasionally trotted out on Fox News as if they were Emmanuel Goldstein from the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four." According to the documentary "Bastards of the Party", you should look at the Crips, the notorious LA street gang, which, after years of sabotage from law enforcement, violence, arrests, political pressure, and the introduction of the drug trade, is what the Los Angeles Panthers devolved to in the late 70's.  Most of the prominent leaders of the party are either dead, in prison, or in exile.

Guns have a tendency to do that, too.

In "Bastards of the Party", the filmmaker, a former gangbanger, lamented the cycle of violence, where you feel compelled to kill the people who killed your friend, just like they felt compelled to kill members of the gang who killed their friend, and so on, and so on, and so on.

In the end, he said that the only way he could help brake the cycle was if he chose NOT to seek revenge on the people who'd murdered one of his family members.

As one of my friends, an AME minister, once pointed out to me, mercy is where you give someone something they don't deserve, but GRACE is where you don't give someone exactly what they deserve.

It's Sunday, and despite the pain and fear in my heart, grace is on my mind, because it's what Christ would ask of me in this moment.

My old film school instructor once said that, according to Catholic canon, the definition of a miracle is any moment where fear is transformed into love.

It was fear that led that jury to say George Zimmerman was justified in stalking and killing an unarmed Black teen.  It was fear that led Zimmerman to arm himself and appoint himself protector of the neighborhood.

And as angry and as fearful as I've been since the verdict, as much as I've imagined being Trayvon  (I can not tell you how many times I've walked home at night from the store wearing a hoodie) and, being someone who hopes to be a Black father one day in an affluent and largely white suburb of Los Angeles, as much as I've imagined the unspeakable pain of his parents, Christ calls me to also imagine being George Zimmerman.

This is a man who wanted to be a hero, a small man who dreamed of pride and respect from being a protector and defender.  Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would become one of the most hated men in America because of his own prejudice and fear. Ironically enough, his unspoken fear of African Americans has transformed into a very real and, sadly, justifiable fear after this whole business.

There will be plenty of time for lawsuits and recriminations and acrimony.

But today is Sunday, and so, in addition for praying for Trayvon's soul, I'm also praying for George Zimmerman and his soul.  I am digging deep into my heart to find, if not love, a measure of empathy for a man who has rightly earned my rage.   In the same way, I pray for the jurors.  I pray that my heart and my prayers can reach out to those who would fear me, my sons, and those that look like us for no reason and feel justified in our murder.

I'm sending them love to cancel out their fear.

I'm praying for them because America needs a miracle.

For George Zimmerman, I can only say what the priest said to Jean Valjean: "I've bought your soul.  No go forth and be a good man."

For Travyon's parents, I'll ask for their forgiveness.

And for Trayvon, well, he's with God right now, so he already knows what's right.

The Only Thing That Should Matter about Trayvon Martin

Before an armed stranger stalked him in the middle of the night, Trayvon Martin had committed no crimes.

None.

Up until the moment a man with a gun started chasing him.

For no reason.

Let me repeat that.

A complete stranger with a GUN was stalking him at night.

Not a cop or a security guard.  Not even a man who owned a property where Trayvon was trespassing. A total stranger with absolutely NO authority of any kind whatsoever was STALKING HIM WITH A GUN.

And Trayvon had committed no crimes.

A court of his peers may decide that George Zimmerman did not, according to the letter of the law, murder Trayvon Martin (and, sadly, that does sound like the direction we're heading).

But I guarantee you that George Zimmerman knows, in his heart, that he is a murderer.

And that thought either makes him feel remorse or it makes him feel pride.

Consider that for a moment.

For Trayvon

A while ago I had a conversation with my fiance about this screenplay I wanted to write about some super secret geopolitical thing that I thought wasn't widely known and didn't get the attention it deserved, and she just looked at me, incredulous.

"Of course no one's written about it!  Do you think you're the first person who thought of this?  How do you think they keep it secret?"

Sometimes, I can be really stupid.

But the point she made was that I'm becoming a family man now.  I had to start considering how my actions effect my family.

Family.

For most of my life before now, that equation equalled "Mom+Dad+Brother+Nana+Me", or some broader combination of aunts, uncles, cousins, and the like.  But now, the most important version of that term, the one for which I'm directly responsible for, is the one I'm building personally with my better half right now.  Children are very important to both of us.

And the idea that a grown man could look at my child, literally walking down the street minding his own business, and KILL them, and then walk away without even an arrest, let alone a trial to even determine if  a crime has been committed just terrifies and infuriates me.

I think of Emmett Till.

I think of Ennis Cosby.

I think of the legions of Black boys who have their lives stolen from them every day because of someone else's irrational fear and hatred.

It's a delicate balance, because I don't want my future children to live in fear, or to expect any less from their home, their community, or their country than any of their white classmates.  Yet I also don't want them to be blind to what I perceive to be the realities of race in America.  I'm struggling to see past the years of learned behavior to find the appropriate level of paranoia and mistrust in a world where most people are good and decent and honest but there are still people out there who will take your life just because you're Black and male.

And it's the callous disregard for that life that horrifies me even more.  Who gives a drug test to a corpse?  Who takes the word of the man with the smoking gun in his hand that the dead guy had it coming as "evidence"?


Even if Trayvon Martin struck first (which I think is a ridiculous claim), doesn't the evidence show that he, too, could have legitimately claimed self-defense under the "Stand Your Ground" law?

Discretion is the better part of valor, people.
 

I'm trying not to get off on a rant about law enforcement and Black Americans, so let me just say two things: paraphrasing Ice-T, your authority is not a license to kill.

And God is watching.