Post trial I spent some time figuring who the defendant was. Who was this man who was forced in our faces for several weeks?
What I found was that George represented many different groups in our society that are critical to our great nation.
First, while George's father is white; his mother was mixed Hispanic and African American. In fact, his maternal great-grandfather was a proud man of African descent at a time when being African American carried with it a significant stigma and danger.
And it wasn't a heritage he merely abandoned. By all accounts George was proud of his diverse ancestry and spent time learning as much as he could about it.
Further, he was a Catholic. A religion which at one time came under bigoted attack by the Paranoid Right and is currently under attack by the Paranoid Left (for some different and some similar reasons).
He's also a Democrat, a concerned husband and neighbor. All in all a good but flawed man.
But his status as an American can also be seen on how he dealt with being born a racial and religious minority of small stature and meek demeanor: he worked to become something. His dreams involved becoming a cop, lawyer or judge; he married; he wanted to move out into the suburbs and start a family. And when that racially diverse housing community asked him to volunteer to keep the community safe from all the teenaged boys breaking into houses, he stepped up.
Even his purchase of a gun showed his humble American-ness. He was no "gun nut" (whatever that means). After his wife was harassed by a neighborhood pit bull on numerous times he was advised by a cop to not buy the pepper spray George was considering and instead purchase a gun. A gun he bought only after taking training, more training than he was required to have.
Leftists might hate him as a two-dimensional figure to shove into their quasi-religious narrative of harsh and institutionalized racism; for their paranoid fantasy about "evil, racist Americans"; but he was more a figure of the things that make this country great: a man of diverse background who lived his life with compassion, worked hard and never bought into the Left's propaganda that since he was a racial and religious minority he could never achieve anything without their "help".
Please note: I am not implying that Trayvon Martin, his friends or family are not true Americans; they have every right call themselves a full part of our great nation. And even though I realize that Trayvon was killed because he made the mistakes of initiating violence, trapping Zimmerman and continuing violence I still extend my sympathies to the Martin family