My thoughts on the Trayvon Martin tragedy: This morning for the first time I heard a public figure use the word that's been on my mind all week. Doris Kearns Goodwin suggested on "Meet the Press" that we should study existing vigilante laws and change them. Her reference did not deflect the conversation from the racial issue involved. Florida has something called the "Stand your ground" law, but I"m not smart enough about its implications in this case.
I could not be more upset over the killing of a young man who was apparently well behaved and had a bright future ahead of him. Nor do I disagree that a racial issue lies at the core of this tragedy. And there's the ugly fact of profiling: did Trayvon Martin really die because he was wearing a hoodie? This senseless incident leaves no room for levity but as an Anglo woman in her seventies, I love my hoodies and wear them a lot. Am I to pack them away, or am I safe because my skin is white and the years show on my face?
The problem of vigilante justice has been with the world through the ages.In this country it goes back to witch hunts in Massachusetts and comes right on up through nineteenth-century "cowboy law" in the Old West and on into too much of the twentieth century with lynchings in the South. Men have always wanted to take justice into their own hands, rather than leave it to the law.
George Zimmerman tells us he was afraid for his life, he shot in self-defense. Yet he did not follow police phone orders to stop following the boy. What was he doing out there, alone and armed, anyway? In my neighborhood--not gated, I hasten to add--we have neighborhood patrols. These volunteers are trained by the police, and they patrol in pairs, unarmed, in cars. Their duty: call the police if they see anything suspicious.And that's their only responsibility.
That of course brings us to one of modern America's sticky wickets: the right to bear arms and the powerful NRA. I know I'll raise the hackles of a lot of my friends, but I am opposed to the right to carry arms. Just as we learn to interpret the Bible as it relates to our era, so we should interpret the Constitution. I doubt our forefathers meant for everyone to carry a Saturday night special in a pocket. If Mr. Zimmerman hadn't been armed and if he had obeyed police instructions, Trayvon Martin would no doubt be alive.
A special prosecutor will sort this out and is much more knowledgeable, both about the case and the law, than I am. But it seems clear to me that this incident is about both race and vigilantism, and we should listen to Doris Kearns Goodwin. I always thought she was one pretty smart person anyway.
This morning our minister began his sermon by saying he'd known sermons to be pitched at the last moment in favor of preaching on a current subject. He wasn't, he said, going to do that, but he talked about Trayvon Martin, how he'd agonized over the tragedy, lost sleep over it, hadn't yet sorted it out in his mind and certainly wasn't ready to preach on it. Then he preached on the day's topic, "Could you forgive Peter?" The text had of course to do with Peter's denial of Jesus, just as Jesus had predicted. As he preached about learning from mistakes and letting that learning, with grace, guide your future life, I thought whether he meant to or not, he was preaching about Trayvon Martin and, even more, George Zimmerman.
Somewhere I read that this case will do for this generation what Emmett Till's death did in the 1960s. It's a horrible way to learn a lesson.
I could not be more upset over the killing of a young man who was apparently well behaved and had a bright future ahead of him. Nor do I disagree that a racial issue lies at the core of this tragedy. And there's the ugly fact of profiling: did Trayvon Martin really die because he was wearing a hoodie? This senseless incident leaves no room for levity but as an Anglo woman in her seventies, I love my hoodies and wear them a lot. Am I to pack them away, or am I safe because my skin is white and the years show on my face?
The problem of vigilante justice has been with the world through the ages.In this country it goes back to witch hunts in Massachusetts and comes right on up through nineteenth-century "cowboy law" in the Old West and on into too much of the twentieth century with lynchings in the South. Men have always wanted to take justice into their own hands, rather than leave it to the law.
George Zimmerman tells us he was afraid for his life, he shot in self-defense. Yet he did not follow police phone orders to stop following the boy. What was he doing out there, alone and armed, anyway? In my neighborhood--not gated, I hasten to add--we have neighborhood patrols. These volunteers are trained by the police, and they patrol in pairs, unarmed, in cars. Their duty: call the police if they see anything suspicious.And that's their only responsibility.
That of course brings us to one of modern America's sticky wickets: the right to bear arms and the powerful NRA. I know I'll raise the hackles of a lot of my friends, but I am opposed to the right to carry arms. Just as we learn to interpret the Bible as it relates to our era, so we should interpret the Constitution. I doubt our forefathers meant for everyone to carry a Saturday night special in a pocket. If Mr. Zimmerman hadn't been armed and if he had obeyed police instructions, Trayvon Martin would no doubt be alive.
A special prosecutor will sort this out and is much more knowledgeable, both about the case and the law, than I am. But it seems clear to me that this incident is about both race and vigilantism, and we should listen to Doris Kearns Goodwin. I always thought she was one pretty smart person anyway.
This morning our minister began his sermon by saying he'd known sermons to be pitched at the last moment in favor of preaching on a current subject. He wasn't, he said, going to do that, but he talked about Trayvon Martin, how he'd agonized over the tragedy, lost sleep over it, hadn't yet sorted it out in his mind and certainly wasn't ready to preach on it. Then he preached on the day's topic, "Could you forgive Peter?" The text had of course to do with Peter's denial of Jesus, just as Jesus had predicted. As he preached about learning from mistakes and letting that learning, with grace, guide your future life, I thought whether he meant to or not, he was preaching about Trayvon Martin and, even more, George Zimmerman.
Somewhere I read that this case will do for this generation what Emmett Till's death did in the 1960s. It's a horrible way to learn a lesson.
