In an "Open Letter" to Michael Skolnik on GlobalGrind (http://globalgrind.com/...), George Zimmerman's brother, Robert, recounts in excruciating detail his family's victimization by those conspiracy-mongers who have injected "racism" into his brother's current legal plight. From the opening platitudes about his and the family's pride in being Americans and his support of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, he then moves into a stunning defense of his brother, despite his role in what he terms the "tragedy" of February 26, due to George's past charitible nature towards African Americans. This evidenced in George's advocacy for an African American homeless man abused by a police officer's son, only to be rebuffed by the local NAACP Chapter, which clearly cared less for "one of its own" than the now greatly misunderstood killer of Trayvon Martin. How thoroughly misunderstood, you might ask:
Even when he reached out to the local chapter of the NAACP and was told that there were no resources that could be sparedto help Sherman Ware, he was not discouraged. My brother had a philosophy of giving back to his community and countryand another way the opportunity to serve the less-fortunate manifested in his life was by serving, with his wife, as a mentor totwo children who happened to be black, whose father was serving a life-sentence in prison. When resources from thegovernment had expired and the funding for the mentoring program was cut – again, George was not discouraged. Hecontinued to mentor the children because he insisted they needed love, the knowledge that they were valuable, and theassurance that they were not alone. It was by simultaneously combating the blatant disregard for a black homeless man’s fateand then reaching into the future by helping two black children achieve some semblance of sure-footing in life that George did his part to combat the unfortunate condition of racial polarization in America. If a few of us are a little more like George, wecan hope to one day defeat it. That is, if those who profit from its existence will allow us to do so.
And what of George's role in taking Trayvon Martin's life, Robert Zimmerman lets us know that his brother "co-operated fully with law enforcement from the moment they arrived on the scene." He then goes on to lambast Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (those who "profit" from racism's existence, one would guess) for spreading lies about the "tragedy," and using references to race to mischaracterize what occurred, like "un-armed black" [sic], and "hunted down black child." There is more of this, what's become all-too-common, those accused of racist acts or engaging in hate-speech seeking odd refuge by accusing others of "playing the race card," or in Mr. Zimmerman's case acting as "race card deck shufflers."
And therein lies the magic, for how else can someone caught after, and admitting to committing, the act of pursuing (i.e. hunting down) and killing an unarmed black (child) be transformed into a Mother Teresa-esque figure? (And, yes, a 17 year old is still legally a child, and at my age, anyway, most people under 30 still qualify by being childlike.)
Or do we forget that without the social activism sponsored by the likes of Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Jackson, who are really only the most famous activists in this case, there might have been no "case" to contend with at all. Had Trayvon Martin's family and the community not come forward, along with those celebrities, to speak out for justice, there may very well have been no judicial "case" for Robert Zimmerman to pontificate on as to where decisions of guilt will now be made. For Robert Zimmerman does lecture us on jurisprudence:
Any conclusions you may have come to or are contemplating arriving at regarding the events of the night of February 26 should be based on the careful examination of facts that have now been established in court, and those facts which are yet to be presented.
We can also thank the letter writer's ability to decide what the "facts" of this case really lead to, the conclusion that his brother "could be any one of us...an innocent man charged by petition." No, not a guilty man who could have gotten away with it because the police and prosecutorial participants thought his act either unworthy of their professional effort (or his victim unworthy of the ethical practice of their oaths). No, get it, George could be any one of "US," and by extension, I suppose, I am to accept that Trayvon Martin is merely one of "THEM."
I see it's really no magic after all. If I identify with the "us," then I really don't have to consider the magnitude of the injustice, historical or contemporary, toward the "them," whoever they will end up being. However, in this case, it SHOULD take little effort to identify with Trayvon Martin and all the "thems" who spoke out quickly and loudly (and pretty much universally peacefully). But your argument, Mr. Zimmerman, is asking me to sympathize with your brother, you, and your now much maligned and inconvenienced family, who have been put in this compromised position by all of those race card playing opportunists who get rich by bringing attention to an unarmed black child's murder that might have been otherwise overlooked. To do this, all I have to do is see what "they" are doing to "us" with all of their race card deck suffling. That "we" need to do something to stop "them" from demanding justice and accountability and requiring law enforcement to do what it is sworn to do, so that misunderstood, Mother Teresa-like people, such as your brother is, who happen to get associated with a "tragedy" such as what happened on February 26, don't end up becoming "us," or I guess me, in this case.
Alas, no, I guess I'm going to have to take that other road today, Robert Zimmerman. In Michael Skolnik's reply to you. perhaps he said it better than I can ( http://globalgrind.com/...). I'd rather wonder about the empty place around the table at Trayvon Martin's family's house over the holidays. In the case of your brother, as well-intentioned as were those things you said he had done before he killed Trayvon Martin, it doesn't place that child back with his family. And it was your brother who decided to carry a loaded gun that night, and to pursue that child, or hunt him down, and he was unarmed, and your brother pulled the trigger and killed him. He is responsible, and you, by your rather strange and convoluted attempt to exonerate him after the fact of his going to trial (a trial which would have not have happened if not for the people you try to implicate in some bizarre twist of reasoning), you are now responsible, too, for it is your presumptuousness, your attempt to deflect all responsibility for a murder, to claim victimhood for yourself and the murderer for what his act perpetuated because the racist society in which we live demanded that a semblance of justice could only be approached through a public spectacle, it is by this that you are a conspirator.
Beside, you are too late, sir, to join the club you seem to want to join, the "us," club, for that club is dying out as we speak, and perhaps you are not even ethnically constituted to play cards in that (white) "race card" club. For being hispanic, though not in name, the "they" who is supposed to be "us" will see you coming anyway, and you'll get barred from entrance. It's a club I don't want to belong to anyway, nor should you. Join the new club, where we are responsible for what we say and do individually, and if we must hang for it, then we must hang for it, and it shouldn't take a community uprising for us to be made to hang for that for which we should hang anyway. Remember those signs African American protestors carried in the 60s? Maybe not. I do. They said, simply, "I AM A MAN." It's time for your brother, and you, sir, to be men. I know I AM. Thank you.