You Are Not Trayvon Martin

His death wasn’t about race, guns, or your pet issue. It was about misjudgment and overreaction—exactly what we’re doing now to the verdict.

Trayvon Martin is dead, George Zimmerman has been acquitted, and millions of people are outraged. Some politicians are demanding a second prosecution of Zimmerman, this time for hate crimes. Others are blaming the tragedy on “Stand Your Ground” laws, which they insist must be repealed. Many who saw the case as proof of racism in the criminal justice system see the verdict as further confirmation. Everywhere you look, people feel vindicated in their bitter assumptions. They want action. But that’s how Martin ended up dead. It’s how Zimmerman ended up with a bulletproof vest he might have to wear for the rest of his life. It’s how activists and the media embarrassed themselves with bogus reports. The problem at the core of this case wasn’t race or guns. The problem was assumption, misperception, and overreaction. And that cycle hasn’t ended with the verdict. It has escalated.

I almost joined the frenzy. Yesterday I was going to write that Zimmerman pursued Martin against police instructions and illustrated the perils of racial profiling. But I hadn’t followed the case in detail. So I sat down and watched the closing arguments: nearly seven hours of video in which the prosecution and defense went point by point through the evidence as it had been hashed out at the trial. Based on what I learned from the videos, I did some further reading.

It turned out I had been wrong about many things. The initial portrait of Zimmerman as a racist wasn’t just exaggerated. It was completely unsubstantiated...

The closest thing to sanity I have seen from the left, but it still has a serious gap with moral equivalence:

Zimmerman is guilty, morally if not legally, of precipitating the confrontation that led to Martin’s death. He did many things wrong. Mistake No. 1 was inferring that Martin was a burglar. In his 911 call, Zimmerman cited Martin’s behavior. “It’s raining, and he’s just walking around” looking at houses, Zimmerman said. He warned the dispatcher, “He’s got his hand in his waistband.” He described Martin’s race and clothing only after the dispatcher asked about them. Whatever its basis, the inference was false.

Given Martin's history of being suspended for possession of women's jewelry and a burglary tool, it's hardly a leap that he might have been casing homes in the neighborhood as he walked back from the 7-11.

Mistake No. 3 was Zimmerman’s utter failure to imagine how his behavior looked to Martin. You’re a black kid walking home from a convenience store with Skittles and a fruit drink. Some dude in a car is watching and trailing you. God knows what he wants. You run away. He gets out of the car and follows you. What are you supposed to do? In Zimmerman’s initial interrogation, the police expressed surprise that he hadn’t identified himself to Martin as a neighborhood watch volunteer. They suggested that Martin might have been alarmed when Zimmerman reached for an object that Zimmerman, but not Martin, knew was a phone.

This is proven false by the fact that Martin had ample opportunity to go home - and chose otherwise.

Martin, meanwhile, was profiling Zimmerman. On his phone, he told a friend he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.” The friend—who later testified that this phrase meant pervert—advised Martin, “You better run.” She reported, as Zimmerman did, that Martin challenged Zimmerman, demanding to know why he was being hassled. If Zimmerman’s phobic misreading of Martin was the first wrong turn that led to their fatal struggle, Martin’s phobic misreading of Zimmerman may have been the second.

It wasn't phobic, it was a thug reaction to the belief that he was being dissed. And in the end, that was what escalated this incident to violence.

When someone says "I am Trayvon Martin" they are saying: "I am a burglar, a thief, a budding junkie, and a street thug."

I notice none of these crowds are saying "I am Erroll Milliard."

They don't even know who he was.

He was a few months older than Trayvon Martin and he was of the same ethnic background as Trayvon Martin and he died suddenly like Trayvon Martin.

But he was unlike Martin in every other way.

He was a true American hero: a decorated combat veteran, a devout Christian, a scholarly and decent young man with enormous self-discipline and laudable plans for the future.

And he was killed by people who Martin's supporters celebrate.

Remember Errol Milliard and hope that you can be half the man he was in his short life.

It's great that he admits that Zimmerman is not a racist.

But he's wrong when he says the left is not Trayvon. Many of them are indeed Trayvon. They are Trayvon for one or more of the following reasons:

They attack people unprovoked and unjustified through words or deeds.
They're addicted to drugs, if not "Lean" and THC like Travon, something else.
They steal.
They label people with names like "crazy ass cracker".
They wanna be Gangsters.
They have a racial chip on their shoulder.
They oppose all authority.
They are Trayvon.

It's great that he admits that Zimmerman is not a racist.

But he's wrong when he says the left is not Trayvon. Many of them are indeed Trayvon. They are Trayvon for one or more of the following reasons:

They attack people unprovoked and unjustified through words or deeds.
They're addicted to drugs, if not "Lean" and THC like Travon, something else.
They steal.
They label people with names like "crazy ass cracker".
They wanna be Gangsters.
They have a racial chip on their shoulder.
They oppose all authority.
They are Trayvon.

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