RELAUNCH

As I listen to the rain beat against my Northern Virginia home while sitting in front of my MacBook, I find it eerily difficult to write this piece. A year ago today on a cold rainy night like this, in a bedroom community like this, a kid was stolen from humanity. This post isn’t much of an article nor an essay, it’s simply remembering Trayvon Martin…

Shortly after 7pm at approximately 7:09 on February 26, 2012 a call was made to the Sanford Florida Police. The caller said there was a suspecting looking unknown male walking around in the rain. The caller went on to describe the suspecting looking unknown male as wearing a gray hoodie, jeans and sneakers. The caller was adamant about something being in the hands of the suspect who he later described as a black kid in his late teens. The police dispatcher tells the caller that they don’t need for him (the caller) to follow the suspect, someone is en route to investigate. The call was then wrapped up.

7:17 Eight minutes later, when Sanford Police arrived on the scene they found the unknown “suspect” (suspect of what) lying face down in the grass. The shooter, was still on the scene and was identified as the 911 caller, GZ. (He’s not worthy of being named unless we call him murderous coward)

GZ was taken into custody. As other first responders arrived, attempts were made to revive the unidentified and unresponsive teen. A short time later, the teen was declared dead.

While GZ was telling his story down at Sanford PD headquarters, the unidentified body of Trayvon Martin was sitting unclaimed at a morgue. His father had filed a missing persons report after the teen never returned from a quick walk to the store.

The senior Martin and his son had been visiting the home of his fiancé who lived in the gated community where the senseless crime had occurred.

Trayvon Martin was killed by a single gunshot ruled a contact shot according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation report.

Trayvon Martin’s name and death have gone on to become synonymous with the legal concept of Stand Your Ground, and the social concept of walking while Black.

Trayvon Martin to me is somewhat like this century’s Emmett Till. A young man off visiting family away from home who went to a store only to never be returned alive to those who knew and loved him. His parents like Till’s mother have shared with the world and media his image so that we will never forget what was done to their child!

This death and others like it pain me and take me a place that reminds me that the skin I wear although it is beautiful, strong, powerful and imitated is the most understood and hated hue… James Craig Anderson of Mississippi; Anthony Hill of South Carolina; and most recently the death of another 17 year old teen, Jordan Davis of Jacksonville Florida, nearly 9 months to the date of the death of Trayvon Martin.

Wake up people! Stop sleeping and believing that we’ve arrived as a nation just because the President and First Lady are Black… We’ve only just began to see the hatred that exist towards our people!