Following the tragic events behind the young Emmitt Till's murder, the majority of 1950's U.S.A. became aware of its nation's brutal racial secret: the Jim Crow Laws. Under this archaic and inhuman jurisprudence, it took the sacrafice of the young Emmitt Till to startle a nation into realizing its own inadequesy. The social division, especially in the Southern United States, in which different worlds were created. Till's sacrafice would be a symbol for the youth who would boldy march on Birminghamg during the summer of 1963. Sacrificing their adolescent mind and bodies to the onslaught of fire hoses and angry canine, all for Civil Rights. For a chance to sit at the table of government and commerce and have their fare share. Then too, the sacrafise of the child was heard around the county to awaken our hearts and minds to the need for progressive legislation.
The need for the community and government to act by setting new standards of how we treat each other as United States citizens. With the murder of Trayvon Martin, the nation should once again turn a caring eye towards its democratic bodies, in an effort to root out its antiquated laws. Specifically in addressing the lax gun control laws and the national anti drug campaign that has lost its social relevance. The death of Trayvon Martin bares a similar burden to the sacrafice of the youth during the epoch of the Civil Rights Movement. It was the Jim Crowe laws that fostered the atmosphere of intolerance and created the world of impunity which allowed violent white perpetrators to commit attrocious acts. These racist mandates created a vast seperation within the American social matrix, alienating millions. With the Trayvon Martin murder, will note two distinct lapses within the Florida judicial system, in which a minor was sacraficed for the sake of convenient justice. Within our modern twenty first century America, we have a War on Drugs that is decimating our middle and lower class families. Coincidently, this wild west, good guys and bad guys approach to narcotics and drug consumption has created a major illicit guns trade that the ballistics industry has profited handsomely from. Few in the media today discuss the fact that Mr. Martin was suspended from school under a Zero Tolerance durg policy. Tragically it was this omission of justice that would send Martin from his mothers house in Miami to his fathers house outside of Orlando in Sanford. Martin was suspended for a trace amount of marijuanna found on his person, under a zero tolerance drug policy. The fact that marijuanna, an openly marketed and semi legal herb, is still treated as a narcotic, is a sign of a legal system unwilling to change with the progressive nature of its human inhabitants. The medical and social benefits of the drug have been highlighted by advocates in the mainstream media for over fifty year. The actuall outcome of the War on Drugs has been an adict riddled nation, where pharmacutical companies absorb billions of dollars, while law enforcement selectively regulates and enforces the social consumptive habits of various ethnic and socio economic groups. The tragedy we note today is the out of place death of a young man, who instead of having a second spring break in Orlando, should have been receiving a quality public education.
Most who discuss this tragedy note the failure of the Stand Your Ground Law to assist in the order of civility within Sanford, Florida on that horrific night. This case will forever ingrain itself in Florida and United States jurisprudence in its relation to the governments legal obligations towards limiting the use of dangerous weapons. Once the Supreme Court makes its decision on any legal manuvering in the prosecution of the shooter and the subsequent changes to the gun control mandates Federally and locally, the nation will then begin to digest the true impact of this crime. And yet the very law on the books today, which we say will assist society in defending innoscence from the intrusion of the dreaded OTHER, has allowed the perpetrator of a violant act to remain free. Trayvon Martin will receive no justice in the traditional sense. The man who took his life will not be tried in state or federal court for murder. A civil suit will certainly be pursued and at most, the federal government will be able to prosecute to its limits under Civil Rights legislation. At most, Martin could serve a few years in prison for his alleged act of "homeland security".
The lesson from this crime should be a sharp reminder, not that racism still exists, or that society is plagued by violence. The lesson, in Trayvon's honor, must be a personal burden upon the entire American nation. Every citizen who refuses to vote. Everyone who votes for their own self interest, their own families and their own churches. Every politician who takes financial support from gun, pharmaceutical, and anti-narcotic lobbyists and superPAC's. Every one who has made it this far into this essay. Me. We all should acquire a degree of guilt from this incident. In taking this burden upon our souls, we all may change the current system which continues to sacrafice our nations youth for profit and false morality.
