Most of black America continues to be gripped with the circumstances surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin. He was the young black teenager who was gunned down by an over zealous neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman.
Martin was murdered on February 26th and his killer has yet to be arrested. In response to the lack of progress in this case, some of America’s most well-known black leaders are planning to descend on the state of Florida this week. On Tuesday night, the NAACP held a town hall to talk about the way forward. It was led by the national organization’s CEO, Benjamin Jealous.
On Thursday, activist and TV host Al Sharpton will hold a rally in Sanford for the family of the slain teen. He will be joined by radio personality Michael Baisden as well as journalist Roland Martin.
America’s attention will be tuned to the town of Sanford for one day, one moment, on one problem. The fight for justice for Trayvon has started, but the end may be a long way away. Today, State Attorney Norm Wolfinger announced that he has requested a grand jury to investigate the death of Trayvon. The United Stated Department of Justice has also announced an independent probe of the case.
So the government, national activists, the community, and everyone in between has become enthralled and involved with the life and death of Trayvon Martin.
But where there is emotion, there is often ambiguity. The chants of “We shall overcome” and “I am Trayvon Martin” make for fantastic sound bites, but do little to move the needle of fair and equal justice. Our clarity only happens after the emotion is led away by time and patience.
This case represents our failure to look past the present and toward the future. There is a national crisis happening in the Midwest and some are too busy to take notice. Over the weekend in the city of Chicago, 10 people were killed and 39 wounded. The month of February yielded 28 homicides for the city of Chicago, up from 25 in 2011.
According to a study released by the Violence Policy Center, the state of Missouri leads the nation in black homicide rates. To put it plainly, we are on the precipice of losing an entire generation of black men and women to circumstantial problems and we are not paying attention.
Ten murders in one weekend should be enough to sound the alarm against anything that threatens the lives of American citizens. Due to the effects of the drug trade, lack of educational resources, towering unemployment, high recidivism rates, rising sexual transmitted disease numbers, and gun violence, the black community has been weakened.
As a result of the above mentioned factors and others, we are now seeing the results of 40 years of horrific circumstances and bad planning. Before we can address the needs of another community led direction, we must first tackle the dead leaves in our own backyard.
There were possibly ten Trayvon Martin’s in Chicago this past weekend. What caused their death and who will pay attention? Better yet, are we taking a look at what may erase a large portion of our community in twenty years?
Are we paying attention to our politicians, and not just how President Barack Obama is being attacked? Have we attended a city council or county commission meeting to voice our concerns before something like this happened?
What I would like for our community to recognize and realize is that the conditions are always ripe for a storm of this nature to occur. The atmosphere is filled with electricity as we wait for the next Trayvon Martin to call attention to the needs and unmerited apathy shown toward our community.
Trayvon Martin is our teachable moment. The same issues that we’ve been fighting for the past 40 years should not still reside on the front burners of our struggle. Aids, cervical and prostate cancer, gun violence, high drop-out rates, lack of educational resources, and other factors are eroding the base and foundation of our neighborhoods.
If we do not face these issues head on and get serious about how and where we spend our time and money and who we vote for, then we may as well rent out the next African-American church for the next rally surrounding the death of another innocent black teenager.
Our moment to look forward to what ails us all is right now. How do we correct these wrongs and where do we start? These questions all have answers and it us up to us to find them.
If we drop the ball and if we fail to come to the rescue of our kids who are yelling and screaming for our attention, then we are no better than those who we believe show us the most indifference.
-JH
