The TV show scenario of the gun falling out and the two men struggling for it is just nonsense. I believe Trayvon Martin had every reason to fear this stranger following him in the dark. I don’t believe the gun came into play during the struggle. If it had, if Zimmerman could have reached it during their encounter, I doubt he’d have taken the beating he claims to have taken. I believe the fight was over. Trayvon let George go, and Zimmerman, finally free to reach, pulled his gun and shot him. For me, no other scenario seems logical or even likely.
Skittles and Obi Won
The main problem, as I see it, is the knee-jerk racial divide
that fitted Trayvon Martin for a halo right off the mark. His
parents released photos not of the seventeen-year old emulating
the edgy, threatening “gangsta” look idolized by boys his age,
but of a happy twelve or thirteen-year old, smiling and brimming
with innocence. This fanned the flames of suspicion and outrage
while not telling a completely honest story. Convenience store
surveillance footage of Martin, purchasing Skittles and iced tea
moments before his death, painted a completely different
picture. Here was a tall, lean kid whose face was obscured by
the ubiquitous urban “hoodie” which—despite the ludicrous
extremes black America has gone to in order to defend it—lends
the appearance of evil. The dark hood has always, perhaps from
its inception, represented mystery if not quite necromancy. The
first time we meet the kindly mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi in the
classic film Star Wars, he is wearing a hoodie. The hoodie was a
deliberate misdirect to make Kenobi seem somewhat mysterious and
nefarious, while the young hero Luke Sykwalker was portrayed,
from the first frame if his appearance, unmasked and unfettered.
Every film and now every “gangsta” video has employed the same
imagery, from Errol Flynn to Wiz Khalifa: the hoodie represents
mystery and darkness if not necessarily or specifically evil.
In the surveillance footage, the store clerk seems not at all
concerned or alarmed by Trayvon Martin, whom he seems to
recognize. I am surely reading into this few seconds of grainy
footage, but my assumption is this clerk has seen Martin before.
Martin does not attempt to steal anything or give the clerk a
hard time. It is a routine and mundane transaction, likely one
that’s gone on many times before, perhaps between this clerk and
Martin. And it is over within seconds. Had I been in that store,
I’d likely have not given Trayvon a second look. A glance past
the gangsta hoodie, I would have seen past even a stony façade
(we do not see what façade Martin portrayed at the time) to see
Martin’s eyes, which told a different story. This is the
unspoken reason young boys wear the hoodie and sag their pants
and so forth in the first place: they’re trying to erect a
defensive perimeter and assume an aggressive posture. Why?
Because they are neither aggressive nor particularly dangerous
They are boys trying to be men, trying to define themselves by
emulating what they’ve seen. Everything about Martin’s
aggressive or threatening look was, in my opinion, entirely
about self-defense. Look aggressive so you don’t become a
victim. This was exactly my pattern of behavior as a teen
growing up in a hostile environment in New York. The
neighborhood Martin was in likely was not the most threatening
of environments, but this was his war paint and these were his
habits: obscure who he actually was, a boy trying to find his
way. What was the tip-off? The Skittles and iced tea.
CONTINUED
