Trayvon Martin, Anti-Samaritanism, and the Unacceptable Burden of Blackness in America by Tom Wise
By now, you probably know the shameful details, but they are worth repeating, in any event. On the evening of February 26, George Zimmerman, a self-appointed “neighborhood watch captain” in an Orlando suburb, shot and killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin. Because Martin was black. And no, don’t even think of rolling your eyes at the suggestion. That is what happened, just as surely as so many might well be loathe to admit it. Oh sure, he denies such a motivation, as does his family, but the details of the incident , now emerging from that evening leave very little question about it. This was not, as we too often hear in the wake of such incidents, “a tragedy.” This was not, as some would have it, “a terrible accident.” It was murder, plain and simple. And it would be called such by everyone in a nation that had any commitment to honest language, which, sadly, would pretty much rule out the one in which Martin’s life began and ended, and in which Zimmerman continues to oper