On the matter of George Zimmerman part 2: Let's get it right boys and girls.

Despite the various accounts of what happened the night Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, the case of the People vs George Zimmerman is one of the most important cases of my lifetime.  This case will decide whether or not like minded people, cut from the same mental and emotional cloth as George Zimmerman have the right, and I mean the right, to stalk, antagonize, and slaughter young black boys that they imagine pose a threat to them or to their communities.  George Zimmerman imagined the threat that ultimately led to Trayvon Martin's death.  That may sound harsh to some people out there, but certain facts of this case are clear.  One, that Trayvon Martin was minding his business, and that two, George Zimmerman's business that night was Trayvon Martin.

As usual, lynch mob justice got the wrong guy again.  If George Zimmerman is allowed to go free, or is convicted of a lesser charge, the verdict tells lynch mobs everywhere (unfortunately we have not outgrown lynch mobs, they have only gotten smaller) that lynch mob behavior is okay, and if you get it wrong, oh well, we understand.

It was unfortunate that the three white men on the CNN's panel of experts discussing the case could do no better than embrace the strategy that would create reasonable doubt.  They were like rabid sports fans discussing the merits of a particular controversial play by their favorite team, instead of seeing this as a violation of our constitutional right to live and be free in our persons.  I know, I know, George Zimmerman has a constitutional right to bear arms and so forth.  But he doesn't have a constitutional right to use them on innocent people.

Repeatedly, the men on the panel accused the lone woman on the panel, Sunny Hostin, who happens to be Afro-Latina with a hint of whiteness (her own description), of injecting her stuff into the discussion.  Her stuff by the way coming from an informed place, the perspective of a former prosecutor.  As I listened to the sometime raging debate, I thought, I recognized their stuff interjected into the debate as well.  I heard the biases of class and race distinctions.  I also heard the echoes of various assumptions made about Rachael Jeantel, the witness they were discussing.  Comments, by the way, that were fueled by the same perspectives critiquing the nature of the argument and opinions of Sunny Hostin.  For one reason or another, to them Sunny's account of what she heard in the courtroom was invalid, and attacked as not being credible.  The rants of these men were filled with so much bias I couldn't tell if it was race, class, gender, or all three.



Walter Dunn Jr is a freelance blogger and author of the novel
The Wino Must Die amazon.com/dp/b00cfsaise