Trayvon

I wrestle with what to say as I begin to write this. I am afraid I won’t give the entry the attention it deserves but I refuse to remain silent. Silence means you accept a situation for what it is. I don’t.

I don’t know what it is like to be a young, black male by any means. I do know what it is like to be a mother, and I do understand discrimination as the mother of a disabled child, as the mother of partially Hispanic children, and as a woman, so I hope I can draw from that and approach this fairly without seeming as if I am speaking for people of color.

I was a teenager once. I did many of the things that Trayvon has been accused of by the media, and then some. Should I have died as an unarmed person because of it? I often wear hoodies. It doesn’t make me a criminal.

The comments on various news stories make me ashamed to be a part of the white community.

Yes, if a black male shot a white teenager without reasonable cause, he would be charged with murder. That is how it should have been. When you murder, you deserve to be arrested, period.

Yes, the black community is outraged. They should be. All the kid did in that moment was walk in the rain with a hoodie on. Everyone should be outraged.

Even if (and I don’t buy it) he attacked Zimmerman as he got into his vehicle, fists are no match for a gun.

As a mother, especially one of teenagers, I am disgusted. This was a 17 year old child. He was unarmed. He had skittles and tea. He was shot and left for dead. Nobody attempted to use his cell phone to identify him and he was left as a John doe for 3 long days while his parents worried and wondered where he was. Nobody of any skin color deserves that and especially due to their skin color alone.

If I walked down the same street with a hoodie in the rain, I would not have been given a second glance.

This is not Trayvon’s fault. He did not have a gun. He. Had. Skittles.

Skittles for his baby brother, at that.

We should all be angry. We should all demand justice. Somehow you relate to this story. Perhaps as a parent. Perhaps as a friend of someone meeting his description. Perhaps as yourself. Be angry. Insist something is done, before it happens again.

Rest in peace, young man.