I Am The One—The Trayvon Martin Dilemma

A mother, she looks down upon the ground 

And sees her bleeding child…
Red springs forth from his wounds,
with hands up towards his mother’s heart,
His dying breath asking-         
“Why?”
And she’s screaming -
“Damn! Damn! Damn!”
No man or woman should be here now.
And that blood is mine…
is yours…
and his,
and hers,
and theirs.
Her screams mingle across the wind,
saying…
It shall rain no more forever!
It shall rain no more forever!
It shall rain no more forever!

I have listened to something that has torn me apart…for the first time in my life I have heard grown men, women and young people of all cultures, races and walks of life calling into to talk shows sobbing uncontrollably. They are calling …about Trayvon Martin. I have been one of them who has shed tears myself… bereft… not just for his loss but for the spot we find ourselves in today.

I, too, am a grown woman and I cannot believe that we are still here. We can’t still be here in America in this stewpot of racism, hatred, poison and vitriol?  We can’t still be here, not just about this incident but the current collection of bullying, homophobia, child abuse and crimes against various races, cultures and religions?

My soul is heavy and for the first time as a writer, I have found it hard to find words. Anyone who knows me would say that is a rare thing. Yet I don’t know what to say.

On Feb. 16, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot on his way home from the store, carrying candy and tea in his hands as so many of us have done. Unarmed he was shot with a 9mm weapon by neighborhood Watch Captain George Zimmerman in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. Due to the controversial ‘Stand Your Ground’ law in Florida and other circumstances; there has been no arrest at this time.

Yes, Martin wore the dreaded ‘hoodie’ – code word to some who would say, “You look dangerous ‘dark one’”…or whatever makes ‘you’ the ‘different one’ be that Gay, Black, Latin, White, Muslim, homeless, weak, poor or old. What is it that makes the life of the ‘one’ so much less than the life of the ‘other one’?

It is true; fear is an age old condition on earth. That is the fear of that which we don’t understand, that which is different, that which we hate. Ultimately it boils down to the fear of ourselves because it’s all us anyway. It’s the same mirror reflecting parts of us that we don’t want to see and despise.

As I have said before I was there. I remember the ‘Colored’ and ‘White’ bathrooms. I remember the brutality of segregation and bullying that went with it. I remember being bullied just for being different. A lot of people have been. I   am the ‘one’ yet I dreamed that when we hit this century humanity would be past all of that. That was a simple thought…the thoughts of a child.

I go to that child because that was what Trayvon was…a child who was walking home that night with a treat; something most of us have done. I will say as President Obama said, “he could have been my child,” just as he could have been yours.

It is not about him being a Black child but that he was a ‘child’ in one of the most powerful nations in the world that could not walk home at night. Unfortunately, there are many more children and others that won’t make it home tonight because they are the ‘one’ for whatever that may mean.

Now rhetoric can blame it on many things “walking while brown, yellow or blue,” racial profiling, overzealous paranoia, police misconduct, an unfortunate confrontation, etc. etc., let us hope and put light on it that the good will overcome and the truth will come out.

Yet we have to look at what is happening right now. Our underpants are showing or perhaps we are just naked…raw, vulnerable humans pounding sticks on the ground and doing the ‘litter box’ on each other...perhaps?

Are we to have Zimmerman brought in like a run-away cow, branded and drug in as a few call for? Or is he to be celebrated as some or doing saying he is a hero for taking out ‘one’ they fear? I am lost—forlorn by some of the comments and words of hate I am reading and hearing in commentary.  I can barely handle it.

Yet many, thousands even millions are coming together because it is time…it is time for something better. We have to do better.