Despite all the other tempting topics for a writer, thanks to a tweet, this is the one image that has stayed open in my browser for the last week and a half.
Trayvon Martin at space camp.
Looking at this photo reminds me of the difference between the young man you see (who would’ve just turned 28 last month) and the person George Zimmerman insisted on seeing. It reminds me of the unflattering and honest light this 2012 murder would cast once again on the divide in our country.
Millions of Americans consider themselves “law and order” Americans but also think that ignoring a direct order from a law enforcement officer and stalking a stranger at night comes with no legal culpability if that stalking results in a confrontation and the entirely avoidable death of the person being stalked.
Millions of Americans who liked and shared hundreds of “fuck your feelings” posts over the last few years also think George Zimmerman was not guilty of murder in part because Zimmerman *felt* that Trayvon Martin looked “up to no good or on drugs or something.”
I’d like to see a Venn diagram with one circle representing the Americans who approved of the Zimmerman verdict, and the other circle representing those who are liking and sharing posts about how the Russian invasion is Ukraine’s fault. What’s the over/under on the number of Americans who accept the White House’s pro-Putin parroting but who thought George Zimmerman should’ve been convicted? Maybe five? Twelve?
People who cry hypocrisy about when these pro-Putin/Zimmerman Americans champion the “stand your ground” concept and when they don’t are missing the point. These jerks know they’re being perfectly consistent about their sympathies and their relationship with fear. We need to understand them, too.
Many people live quiet lives informed by racism and bigotry. In a pluralistic society, that has to be OK. What they say and think in the privacy of their own living rooms or on their asshat chat groups is their business. I’m leaving hearts and minds to sturdier souls.
Problem is, an increasingly fascistic government provides validation and encouragement for worse. Vulnerable populations go from employed to unemployed, from quiet disapproval to verbal insults, from tense coexistence to suffering outright aggression and attack — at which point they find themselves blamed.
As Hemingway wrote, “There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the times comes.”
Some folks are just now finding their inner fascists starting to bloom. And sure, there will always be atrocious beliefs and behavior. The soul of America is perched uncomfortably between that behavior as an outlier and that behavior as something increasingly normalized and rationalized.
The struggle for that definition — and the resistance against reverting back to all sorts of second-tier citizenry — is the space where many of us actually can and may well have to make a difference.
Speak, write, report, protest. Whatever suits you.
When (not if) the opportunity arises: Point. Mock. Shun.
To turn a familiar phrase upside down to better serve an upside-down era, be the lack of change you want to see in the world.
The last word goes to some welcome lightheartedness from Lyle Lovett, who knows that sometimes things don’t look good, “but what would you be if you didn’t even try?”
