Zimmerman/Martin - The System - Prejudice and Responsibility

I have for the most part kept quiet about Zimmerman/Martin case, and honestly what I want to talk about is much larger than that, it’s about ‘the system’ and the racial portion of this this case and how we as a society have to look at what we’re teaching our children.  I expect that many will disagree, and you are more than welcome to unfriend me if you’d like, but I have points I want to make.
 
First the easiest for me.  The system that acquitted Mr. Zimmerman is not perfect.  As it’s been pointed out he had good lawyers (read lawyers that not everyone could afford) that definitely made his defense much clearer than most public defenders ever could of.  But that doesn’t make justice based on any color other than the color of green.  OJ Simpson was black with plenty of green, and it got him off a murder case just the same as it did Mr. Zimmerman. 
 
Is the system perfect? Far from it!  But is the best system known to man today? YES!  I heard quotes of Zimmerman just needed to go to jail without a trial.  Has the Un-Patriot Act not taught you anything?  The second you give up freedoms that are inherent in our country, more will be taken away.  When we take away a citizens right to a trial by a jury of his peers  for ANY reason what so ever, that is just the start of the long and slippery slope to the king saying that he doesn’t like your face and you too will be thrown in jail.  Don’t believe me?  Look in history, its’ why the Magna Carta was written to start with.  It’s why our founding fathers demanded that the Bill of Rights was included in any constitution that was to be written.  It’s why we’ve been warned for 2 centuries to be vigilant about our rights and freedoms. 
 
Until someone comes up with a better system I will defend the system we have to my death. 
 
Now on to the prejudice that has been over the top the last several weeks.  About 4 years ago I got a taste of prejudice that floored me.  I was raise that you judge the man or woman by who they really were - their deeds, the quality of their word, and the love in their hearts, nowhere in there was the color of their skin. So when I came across an incident that brought out the worst in everyone (at a church no less) over race I was floored.  So I am not ignorant, nor do I wear rose colored glasses when it comes to the prejudice in this nation.  But that being said I’m going to make some points.
 
Why have we allowed newspapers and TV to report tabloid style news as mainstream news, and accept it?  This is not a left or a right thing, this is a left AND right thing!  Zimmerman is Hispanic, yet rarely did you see that, it was always white.  Why? Because THAT makes better reading, white man kills black man rather than Hispanic kills black man.  When it’s black on black or white on white is it reported that way? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a headline of “Black man kills another black man” or “White man kills another White man”, nope, not good reading.  But black on white we can stir emotions and get someone to read.  Come on people, can’t you see the game they are playing?  Your emotions are at play and they know it.  They bring you right down to the animalistic stage of evolution instead of the thinking human stage, and yet we fall for it every time. 
 
I’m so sick and tired of tabloid reporting.  While I’m not a fan of Obama, I have defended him several times lately because of the articles that were published were so freaking slanted that the truth was barely noticeable in the story.  If the news would report the news then we as voters could vote appropriately. Now you have to dig through so much manure to get to the news that even the real news smells funny.  And you think the media isn’t playing on raw emotions trying to get you hooked? Wake up!
 
Is there prejudice in America? Hell yes! Is it stupid? Hell yes! Is it ignorant? Hell yes!  And yet every time one of these incidents happen we perpetuate it into another generation by our reactions to the incident. 
A fear of the big bad white man holding us down (from a black perspective), a fear of the hoodlum based purely on his color, the Bohemian keeping the Mexicans down, the ….oh you get the picture..it goes on and on and on and never stops. 
 
Last I want to talk about is being personally responsible for your actions. 
 
If I ever heard that one of my 4 boys ever disrespected any authority their fear would be more from me than anything a prosecutor could ever do to them.  While this is more of a generational thing then a racial it needs to be addressed.  I don’t care how much you ‘hate those pigs’ or whatever it is you want to say, in the heat of the moments you do as you’re told!  Even in my household I tell my kids you don’t like the rule I’ve made, or the things I’ve told you to do, the moment to talk about it is NOT in the heat of the moment.  You get out of the situation and THEN you come back and say “I don’t think what you did was right or fair and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again”.  Maybe that’s in the form of a lawsuit, but it’s not done at in the middle of the situation. 
 
Everyone has said if Zimmerman hadn’t followed Trayvon then Trayvon would be alive today.  What if Trayvon had done what my kids best do in a situation like that, and just sit, as unjustly as it might have been, and waited for authority to come send him on his way?  Now Trayvon has a civil suit and dollars in his pocket, and he’d be alive.  It took 2 to tangle that night, and I’m not excusing either one in this case, but this cannot solely sit on Zimmermans shoulder.
 
As parents we need to teach our kids that the second we do wrong in response to someone elses actions we ourselves become the bad guys and are no better than the other person, and we now become the targets of the law or any other sanctions that might come our way.  Easier said than done I know, but I also know that one of my sons took a beating without throwing a punch back.  The result the other boy was sent to jail, suspended from school and other sanctions, my son was a hero in my books, and by most of his peers.  What did he get? Sympathy and the law willing to do something all because he did what was right.  Had he thrown just 1 punch he too would have been suspended, he would of gotten exactly what the other boy got, and honestly the police wouldn’t have pursued the case with the vigor they did because they would of felt like justice was already done between the 2 of them.  Two wrongs never make a right!
 
Yes I’m not going to lie, there was humility in doing the right thing, but that is temporary compared to the permanent ramifications of not doing it right. 
 
Was dying for not doing what was right a just punishment? NO absolutely not! No! No! No! But I wasn’t there that night and can’t tell you what all went on, and guess what, neither were you!
I do know Zimmerman showed poor judgment following Martin that night.  A mistake that I think should keep him out of any kind of law enforcement in the future.  He has to take responsibility for his actions, and to me that’s part of it, show poor judgment you can’t be a policemen. 
 
So to summarize:
 
Our justice system isn’t perfect, but there isn’t a better one out there!
 
This prejudice has to stop, and we have to stop allowing media to stir raw emotions in us to perpetuate this hatred amongst people.  Politics, religion and race all seem to fall into this category. 
 
We HAVE to teach our children 2 wrongs never make a right!  There is a time and place to take corrective action, but if we stay ‘right’ we will eventually come out on top.  The second we cross that line we are no better than the person who was first ‘wrong’.   We cannot control the actions of others, but we can control our reactions.
 
Is there prejudice? Yes, but we have to deal with it NOT with emotions, but with real action and real thought processes.  And we who are old enough to know better need to get over some of our feelings getting hurt and let go so we can move on (again allowing emotions to control us), and more importantly teach our younger generation to do the same.
 
The tragedy and travesty of the Zimmerman/Martin incident is beyond my grasp.  I cannot imagine the Martins pain, or the day to day fear in Zimmermans life right now.  I would wish it on no one, regardless of color.
In closing, I wonder if just ½ the energy that’s been spewed in hatred over the couple of months, and in particular in the last month,  was used to push peace, harmony, and most of all forgiveness where our country would be.  Hatred is infectious.  Don’t believe me, go look at the Facebook post of people who would never say something like that out in public under normal circumstances, that perpetuated hate to one another, but because of the hatred being spewed jumped in.  Raw emotions at work.
 
I’m sure I haven’t made some happy with this post.  I’m sure some will call me racist and worst.  It won’t be the first time nor the last I post things that are not popular.  It’s ok, you can un-friend me if you’d like, I won’t hunt you down. I’ll pray for you.  But if a handful of you read this, nod your head and say ‘maybe he’s got a point or two and we need to think about it’, then it will be worth the week it’s taken me to write this.
 
God Bless,
Dennis