I started writing this blog entry, this memorial, a month or
so ago. Trayvon Martin is still on my mind. In 2005 Florida became the first
state to pass a “Stand Your Ground” law under Republican governor Jeb Bush and
under the Presidency of George W. Bush. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground Law”
permitted a gun toting George Zimmerman to hunt down and murder a black
teenager whom he felt was a threat to him. The one aggressively carrying the
gun is the one entrusted with the determination of threat. This situation is
reminiscent of the permissive lynching of black men or teenagers like Emit Till
whose death at the hands of some white men was justified on the basis of a
perceived or contrived threat to white men’s wives and sisters. White men who
felt that black men and other men of color were a threat to them or their
sisters, wives, daughters, mothers, aunts, and nieces could murder said black
males in cold blood on their own word that a black male delivered a threat via
a glance or whistle. Such constructed
and contrived feelings of some among the majority and of those who identify
with the majority based on similarity of skin color or other physical features continue
to be in some places the sole basis for assaulting and murdering people who are
ostensibly other. These others
have the misfortune of transgressing the imagined and constructed boundaries of
space and place reserved for whites only. An out of place other who
transgresses spaces reserved for the majority must be put back in his or her
place or eliminated as an example to others who think the world is their
playground. For people like
Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin had transgressed space allotted for white people like
him and needed to be put back in his place. So Zimmerman pursued the young
teenager that carried ice tea in one hand and skittles in his pocket.
I reject the feelings of fear usurped by Zimmerman as one
who identifies with the majority and takes a stand against a young teenager who
is ostensibly black and therefore out of place. I reject the usurpation of fear
by the majority or those who identify with them as a basis for determining
whether one is a threat. I reject
this usurpation of fear because despite the history of violence in this
country perpetrated by the white majority against the Native Indians and black
slaves and free(d) blacks, representatives of the majority culture (and those
who aligned themselves with it) have co-opted and usurped the fear that should logically
and experientially belong to racialized, deracinated, colonized, and racialized
minorities. Despite White
America’s history of being the aggressor and agent of violence against Native
Indians and Africans shipped to America’s shores as slave, many white peoples’
fears of racialized minorities (backed historically by gun- and Bible-toting
colonists and more lately by powerful lobbyist such as the NRA and wealth
without conscious) have been given voice and legitimization. This same usurpation
of fear phenomenon played out in South Africa and other places around the
globe. I remember when Apartheid ended in South Africa, the greatest fear was
the fear of retaliation by blacks against whites and/or Afrikaners. Never mind the perpetual fear that
terrorized “blacks” and “colored” people during Apartheid’s bloody reign. The people
who should be fearful are not permitted to express their fearfulness in any
rhetorical and/or public way. But those who have been the perpetrators of
violence are licensed to continue committing acts of violence against those
they have historically victimized.
I reject this usurpation of fear because my feelings of fear
as a black female are seldom acknowledged or too of ten considered to be
without foundation despite the majority people’s not so distant history of
violence against black people and against women in general. There is stark contrast between
Zimmerman and Marissa Alexander’s cases. Both live in Florida. One is a “white”
Hispanic male and the other is obviously an African American female. Zimmerman
killed a young teenager whom he felt was a threat to his life. Marissa fired a warning shot at her
ex-husband who had a history and record of abusing her. Florida’s “stand your
ground law” allowed Zimmerman to avoid initial arrest. The same law provided no
shelter or defense for Marissa who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on May
14, 2012. Fear for her life,
despite past abuse and threats, was not an adequate defense for Marissa to fire
a warning shot at her abuser. But fear of an unarmed “black” teenager by a male
who identifies with the majority in a racialized society is enough to keep him
out of jail until the human public pressed for a proper investigation and
arrest.
If anybody should be entitled to feelings of fear in this
society it should be racialized minorities and women. Yet, they are not the
ones who vociferously lobby for the right to carry guns. I reject the
cooptation of the fears that racialized minorities should more legitimately be
entitled to express given the history of violence perpetrated against us in
this country. Native Indians were victimized violently when their lives, land,
culture, dignity, and human rights were (and continue to be) snatched from
under their feet like a worn out mat.
Africans and African Americans were enslaved, murdered, raped,
disenfranchised, lynched, discriminated against, and continue to experience
racism and de facto separate and unequal treatment in education, housing,
health care, and jurisprudence. Women have been the inordinate victims of sexual and domestic
violence globally and continue to disproportionately, experience sexual and
domestic violence.
Our right to (but decision not to) live in constant fear is co-opted
when a white majority and/or those who aligned themselves with them pass laws
allowing them to kill another human being because they feel threatened or fear for their lives. Their fear is
justified and ours is paranoia. Not
surprisingly an organization like the NRA, a majority white male group, is the
primary financial supporter of and lobbyist for the law that made Zimmerman
believe he could hunt down and shoot Trayvon Martin with impunity. When the murder of a black teen like
Trayvon Martin by someone hiding behind the shoot-and-ask-questions later law
receives the media attention it deserves, the NRA accuses the media of
“sensationalizing” the event. Executive VP of the NRA Wayne LaPierre called the media
coverage of this case “a national disgrace.” At an NRA rally, Ted Nugent called our duly elected
President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama, “vile and
evil” and said that he would be dead – sowing fear and violence. But Nugent and
other card-carrying (and non) members of the NRA promote the idea that they
need to defend themselves from the rest of us. This
trivializing of the victim’s tragedy by the perpetrator’s perceived legal and
racial privilege is another way of co-opting the legitimate fears of many
minorities and women who associate more with the victim, and rightfully
so.
