Trayvon Martin: innocence lost and justice denied

Shane Wade
Opinion Editor

The definition of corruption is when power abuses power in order to protect power.

That’s what happened here: An unarmed youth is shot and killed by an empowered individual on little evidence and against the will of authority. But what started as a case of injustice evolved into an issue that reignited the status quo of race in America.

What the issue is being made in to, however, almost detracts from the core problem affecting America today: Laws used to protect the people are time and time again used to circumvent justice, protect those in power and their interest, and punish victims.
From celebrities that are arrested for DUIs and drug possession to the moral and financial injustices that brought about the Occupy Wall Street movement, we see our justice system being carried about like change in a purse, to be doled out at the whim of whomever carries it.

For every moment that George Zimmerman walks untried, for every moment that Trayvon Martin and his family are delayed their justice, the powers that be stand guilty. Justice delayed is justice denied. That imbalance alone should have struck a cord and rang against the scales of justice.

But now a movement, clad in solidarity against racial injustice, has been unleashed.

We are imbued in a struggle to reconstruct and fix the broken, controversial and sensitive narrative of race in America. Our society and culture passively encourages the enforcement of stereotypes and racism, from casual jokes in sitcoms to individuals that get away with publicly disrespecting and comparing the president of the United States, a black man, to a monkey.

The struggle is as real as racism, and to deny it is criminally ignorant. There is an unspoken burden upon young, black men in America – a burden that denies us the right to dress as we want; a burden that dictates we avoid certain areas at certain times, a burden that mandates store clerks peer more closely at our browsing.

We are inherently suspect, and it is physically and mentally exhausting.

We have to follow a different social curriculum than other youths.

When Martin was shot while abiding by those unspoken rules passed onto us by fearful parents, we all shuddered.

But when the sun set, Martin wasn’t solely shot because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because he was black, or wearing a hoodie.

Martin was shot because a man with power sought to enforce his power.

He was shot because of a corrupt system.

He was shot because Zimmerman had and has the backing of a system of compliance and skewed acceptance.

When we hold rallies and talk about the racial aspects of the issue, we don’t just seek to correct the massive overarching issue of race and stereotypes, we seek to correct an imbalance and miscarriage of power. The current movement of “I am Trayvon Martin” is a movement to correct that balance by recognizing and taking action against a significant instability within that equation: racial injustice.

We should view the issue not solely as a miscarriage of power that resulted in the death of a 17-year-old boy, but also as a miscarriage of power, one that speaks volumes about a system.

The power that should be condemning and trying Zimmerman is instead protecting him. The power that should be bringing justice to a boy’s senseless death instead rests impotently. Making this issue solely about race does not critically trivialize it, but takes away a more human aspect and component of it.

Remember Trayvon Martin. Remember that racial injustice is also human injustice.