{"id":7136,"date":"2013-07-15T07:30:05","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T07:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7136"},"modified":"2013-07-15T07:35:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T07:35:01","slug":"zimmerman-racially-polarized-america-react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=7136","title":{"rendered":"Zimmerman: Racially polarized America react"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Violence<\/a>
Violence errupts in California<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin reverberated from church pulpits to street protests across the country on Sunday in a renewed debate about race, crime and how the American justice system handled a racially polarizing killing of a young black man walking in a quiet neighborhood in Florida.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers, members of the clergy and demonstrators who assembled in parks and squares on a hot July day described the verdict by the six-person jury as evidence of a persistent racism that afflicts the nation five years after it elected its first African-American president.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrayvon Benjamin Martin is dead because he and other black boys and men like him are seen not as a person but a problem,\u201d the Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, told a congregation once led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Dr. Warnock noted that the verdict came less than a month after the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to void a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last few weeks have been pivotal to the consciousness of black America,\u201d he said in an interview after services. \u201cBlack men have been stigmatized.<\/p>\n

\u201dMr. Zimmerman, 29, a neighborhood watch volunteer, had faced charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter \u2014 and the prospect of decades in jail, if convicted \u2014 stemming from his fatal shooting of Mr. Martin, 17, on the night of Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, a modest Central Florida city. Late Saturday, he was acquitted of all charges by the jurors, all of them women and none black, who had deliberated more than 16 hours over two days.<\/p>\n

President Obama, calling Mr. Martin\u2019s death a tragedy, urged Americans on Sunday to respect the rule of law, and the Justice Department said it would review the case to determine if it should consider a federal prosecution.<\/p>\n

As dusk fell in New York, a modest rally that had begun hours earlier in Union Square grew to a crowd of thousands that snaked through Midtown Manhattan toward Times Square in an unplanned parade. Onlookers used cellphones to snap pictures of the chanting protesters and their escort by dozens of police cars and scores of officers on foot.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of bystanders left the sidewalks to join the peaceful demonstration, which brought traffic to a standstill.<\/p>\n

In Sanford, the Rev. Valarie J. Houston drew shouts of support and outrage at Allen Chapel A.M.E. as she denounced \u201cthe racism and the injustice that pollute the air in America.\u201d\u201cLord, I thank you for sending Trayvon to reveal the injustices, God, that live in Sanford,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Zimmerman and his supporters dismissed race as a factor in the death of Mr. Martin. The defense team argued that Mr. Zimmerman had acted in self-defense as the 17-year-old slammed Mr. Zimmerman\u2019s head on a sidewalk. Florida law explicitly gives civilians the power to take extraordinary steps to defend themselves when they feel that their lives are in danger.<\/p>\n

Mr. Zimmerman\u2019s brother, Robert, told National Public Radio that race was not a factor in the case, adding: \u201cI never have a moment where I think that my brother may have been wrong to shoot. He used the sidewalk against my brother\u2019s head.\u201dMr. Obama, who had said shortly after Mr. Martin was killed that if he had a son, \u201che\u2019d look like Trayvon,\u201d urged the nation to accept the verdict.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy,\u201d Mr. Obama\u00a0said in a statement. \u201dNot just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.<\/p>\n

\u201dMayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, one of the country\u2019s leading advocates of gun control, said the death of Mr. Martin would continue to drive his efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSadly, all the facts in this tragic case will probably never be known,\u201d he said. \u201cBut one fact has long been crystal clear: \u2018Shoot first\u2019 laws like those in Florida can inspire dangerous vigilantism.<\/p>\n

Many blacks, and some whites, questioned whether Mr. Zimmerman, who is part Hispanic, would have been acquitted if he were black and Mr. Martin were white.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would have been in jail already,\u201d Leona Ellzy, 18, said as she visited a monument to Mr. Martin in Sanford. \u201cThe black man would have been in prison for killing a white child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeff Fard, a community organizer in a black neighborhood in Denver, said Mr. Martin would be alive today if he were not black. \u201cIf the roles were reversed, Trayvon would have been instantly arrested and, by now, convicted,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are realities that we have to accept.”<\/p>\n

But even race\u2019s role in the case became a matter of a debate. One of Mr. Zimmerman\u2019s lawyers, Mark O\u2019Mara, said he also thought the outcome would have been different if his client were black \u2014 but for reasons entirely different from those suggested by people like Mr. Fard.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never would have been charged with a crime,\u201d Mr. O\u2019Mara said.\u201cThis became a focus for a civil rights event, which again is a wonderful event to have,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they decided that George Zimmerman would be the person who they were to blame and sort of use as the creation of a civil rights violation, none of which was borne out by the facts.\u00a0The facts that night were not borne out that he acted in a racial way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of churches nationwide declared today ‘Hoodie Sunday’ in honor of Trayvon Martin.\u00a0 Reverend Tony Lee of the Community of Hope A.M.E. Church in Temple Hills, Maryland delivered his sermon in a hooded sweatshirt.\u00a0 While the six women of the jury in Florida said George Zimmerman was acting in self-defense when he shot Martin, many in Lee’s congregation are not convinced.\u00a0 There is outrage and disappointment among many members of the black community.<\/p>\n

Civil unrest followed the acquittal of George Zimmerman in California, with demonstrators smashing windows, attacking police cars, overturning dumpsters and setting fires in downtown Oakland.<\/p>\n

One police car was daubed with the words \u201cKill Pigz\u201d as American flags were torched. \u201cKill Zimmerman\u201d was also scrawled on the Alameda County Court.<\/p>\n

Following a wave of threats to riot in major cities if Zimmerman was cleared of all charges, trouble flared up almost immediately after the verdict was announced late last night.<\/p>\n

Unrest appears to be confined to Oakland for the time being, with more peaceful protests taking place in San Francisco, Washington, DC, New York and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Twitter messages\u00a0threatening to violently kill George Zimmerman<\/a>\u00a0continue to flood the social network.<\/p>\n

A Zion, Illinois teen known was slapped with felony charges after allegedly saying he’d ’cause a mass homicide’ at his high school should George Zimmerman be acquitted.<\/p>\n

After jurors in Sanford, Fla., said Zimmerman was not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, black football player Victor Cruz said Zimmerman wouldn\u2019t last a year on the streets.<\/p>\n

The Giants star tweeted: “Thoroughly confused. Zimmerman doesn’t last a year before the hood catches up to him.\u201dCruz deleted the controversial tweet before apologizing in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

Beyonce called for a moment of silence for Trayvon Martin during a concert just hours after George Zimmerman was found not guilty by a Florida jury.<\/p>\n

The pop star took a moment to honor the teen during her concert Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. – NYT\/NYP\/Prison Planet<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin reverberated from church pulpits to street protests across the country on Sunday in a renewed debate about race, crime and how the American justice system handled a racially polarizing killing of a young black man walking in a quiet neighborhood in Florida. Lawmakers, members … Continue reading “Zimmerman: Racially polarized America react”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[1674,3704],"class_list":["post-7136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","tag-racial-violence","tag-zimmerman"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/zimmermanprotest.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7136"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7144,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7136\/revisions\/7144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}