brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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Our intention in posting a "Black Lives Matter" sign in front of our house wasn't to offend anyone. In fact, it was precisely due to fear of negative reactions we hesitated to do it. Posting the sign doesn’t mean we don’t believe all lives matter or we don’t value the lives of police officers. If there were room on the sign, it would say: “All lives won’t truly matter until black lives matter too.” Or simply: “Black lives matter too.” If Trayvon Martin — whose murder sparked the movement — had been a white 17-year-old returning to his father’s house in a gated community in Florida, where he was a guest, he would be alive today. It wouldn’t have mattered he was wearing a hoodie or had Skittles in his pocket or traces of THC, indicating possible marijuana use, in his bloodstream. George Zimmerman wouldn’t have called 911 and he wouldn’t have said during a recorded conversation, “These (expletive) they always get away.” Like so many teenagers, Trayvon Martin was talking on his cell phone with a friend. It was dark and rainy and a stranger — a large, burly man — was pursuing him for no apparent reason. Trayvon told his friend what was happening. He started to run. Zimmerman had a gun; Trayvon didn’t. Did they wrestle for the gun? Who most feared for their life in this situation, the unarmed teenager chatting on the phone or the armed vigilante? There was little physical evidence at the crime scene and only one surviving witness to help determine what happened. Defense attorneys argued Zimmerman shot Martin in self defense. Protected by Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, he was acquitted. Zimmerman claimed he was acting on behalf of the Neighborhood Watch program, yet the rules of the program were clear: no guns. When he called 911, the dispatcher asked him if he was following Martin. When Zimmerman, according to the transcript, said, “Yeah,” the dispatcher replied, “OK, we don’t need you to do that.” If the alleged trespasser posed a danger, the police were on their way. Zimmerman ignored the 911 dispatcher and pursued Martin on his own, afraid he would somehow elude the police and get away with … what? He wasn’t doing anything illegal. There was no imminent threat to anyone and if Zimmerman put himself in danger — Trayvon, confronted by a stranger and in fear for his life, fought with his attacker for possession of the gun — this was due to his own careless actions. Yet the jury bought the self-defense argument. “You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” President Barack Obama said in response to this tragedy. Critics eviscerated him for this statement, when all he was trying to do was show empathy to parents who lost a child. We all should see Trayvon Martin as our son, our grandson, our brother, our nephew, our cousin. He was killed for no reason other than the sight of a young man with black skin arouses more fear and suspicion than the sight of a young man with white skin. And to kill that young man because of that fear is, in many states, justifiable under the law. This is why black lives don’t matter under the current justice system in equal measure to white lives. It’s why athletes like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe have chosen to use their platform to call attention to this inequity. And while I resisted putting up the BLM sign because I feared we were communicating a different message than what we intended — perhaps even alienating those who misunderstood that intent — a simple statement by my husband changed my mind. If one black person walks by our house and sees the sign and it makes a difference, it’s worth it. It could be our letter carrier or UPS driver. It could be a neighbor. It could be a child walking to school. Whoever it is, we want them to know in our home, their life matters.
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Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |