I have watched this unfold since that fateful day in February, with ever growing frustration. I listened to voices from each side building a narrative as to what occurred on that day and why. Both of these narratives are incongruous with one another and the truth that seems to filter through if you truly think about it. Perhaps it not such a universal truth, but it is because I can see myself in both of these men.
I can see myself in Trayvon Martin, (no I am not African-American) as a young man with an attitude and exaggerated sense of self-righteousness that seems to come with the teen years. He was walking home with no ill to anyone, when he was accosted or followed by a busy-body who dared to question his right to be there.
I can see myself in George Zimmerman, from a part of my life where I having only recently freed myself of those illusions of invulnerability and thinking myself more mature and right, when I had only traded one sense of self-righteousness for another. In my narrow view during this time I deemed anyone who did not fit the box I was living as a lesser person to be questioned and confronted and made to see the error of their ways.
Through this prism of time, I can see that I would have shot me. How ridiculous is that? This is why the voices clamoring for each side seem to me to be the voices of dumb and dumber, each vying to be the latter. No, I am not trying to cheapen the legitimate grief and anger of Trayvon’s parents, family and friends. Nor, am I saying George did not have the right to defend himself when he found himself in a struggle that seemed to him to be for his very life.
No, instead I am looking to the choices that led them to the tragic ending on that day in February. Each of them made poor choices that led to that struggle that cost a young man his life. And, by overlooking the poor choices of your chosen protagonist in this tragedy, you cheapen the lives of both men to a comic book narrative instead of that of flesh and blood men, one of whom died that day.
George made the choice to get out of his truck and follow a young man without a thought to how that could be perceived as a threat, especially considering the fact he was armed. Trayvon made the choice to confront his antagonist with violence or at the best, return violence with some of his own. When each did this, they abandoned the higher moral ground that until those moments both fleetingly held. From there the situation simply deteriorated until one of them was dead and the other facing the righteous questions about his decisions that led to that death.
This is about violence. Once any situation escalates to it, no one wins. I realize it is a fictional character but it brought to my mind the words of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, when asked if he had ever lost a fight. “Not sure I even ever won one.” No one wins a fight, period. You only survive one.
When that time comes and you find yourself wanting to do violence, look at the best case results of your actions. If you win, having done violence, what have you won? Have you won the other man’s respect? No, you have won only his fear. And if you have killed to survive it, what have you won? You have won life in a cage or at best the title, “Killer.” Don’t get me wrong, there are things worth dying and killing over. But, a man in a pissing match with one barely a man over their respective rights to be on a public street is not one of those things, not when both at one point had the alternative to walk or even run away to live to fight another day. I believe pride prevented either from doing this.
I believe the shame of this is that instead of using this tragedy as a teaching point to all young men of all races and creeds to avoid violence as a means to solve squabbles, some on both sides are using this to incite further incidents of violence. While this may seem just to each sides petty view, instead these words of anger just put us on a collision course to more Trayvon’s and George’s taking one another’s lives for nothing that is worth a life, much less many lives. To prevent this, I think would be just. And that is how we must find the justice in this for Trayvon. Make his death mean life for others, not more death for either those like him or those unlike him.
I will close my remarks with the thoughts of a great man on vengeance and how to live:
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Both quotes are from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who himself perished violently, but died for something worth dying for.
