If Trayvon Martin Had His Slave Pass Maybe He Would Still be Alive: Black Life is Cheap Again, George Zimmerman is Found "Innocent" of Murder

The United States government has historically worked to protect and serve White people and their interests. The jury's decision in the George Zimmerman trial is one more data point in a centuries-long trajectory of racism in this country.

The jury looked at the narrative of a white Hispanic stalking, hunting, shooting, and killing a young black man and found it a simple one to litigate. When in doubt defend the right of white vigilantes to kill and murder black people.

Moreover, the jury bowed down to the power of the gun. The gun protects "us" from "them". The Zimmerman "not guilty" verdict is a reinforcement of the reality of the colorline, and that the jury intimately and deeply understood from their cultural training and political socialization, that when in doubt side with the white shooter against black "criminals".

The Zimmerman "not guilty" verdict is proof that black life is cheap again. There is a paradox proven once more about black life in the Age of Obama. We can have a President who happens to be black, but black people are under existential threat, in a near state of "social death", and once more must prove that we have a right to exist--a right to life that can be nullified at will by those like George Zimmerman who are in bed with White Authority.

A year or so ago, I predicted that George Zimmerman would be found innocent. If police can shoot and kill innocent black people for the "crime" of holding house keys, wallets, cell phones, and other harmless objects, Zimmerman's walking away from this show trial spectacle was a given.

The jurors have to return home to a community with a long, deep history of white supremacy and anti-black racism. The demonic shadows of Jim and Jane Crow were in George Zimmerman's ear that night, telling him to shoot and kill those "fucking punks" that "always get away". Those punks weren't vague chimeras or generic "bad guys". No. They are black men. On that evening, George Zimmerman did the (White) community's will of his being a 21st century slave patroller hunting down and killing black folks.

Instead of the mark on the cheek or a brand on some other part of the body, Martin was marked as fit for surveillance, harassment, and murder by George Zimmerman because the former wore a "hoodie" and was black, breathing, and nearby.

In all, the Zimmerman jury simply agreed with their own racial "common sense" about black people, our inherent criminality, and threat to white civilization and order. The jury bowed down to their community norms. They could not, nor would they go home, to their white peers in a very conservative, white, segregated community, and justify how could they send one of their "defenders" to prison for the petty crime of killing a black person.

The Zimmerman jury also validated the day-to-day life experiences of how race is lived as a series of small slights, micro aggressions, institutional discrimination, and pointed stabbing reminders--as in this decision--of the semi-permanence of white supremacy as a social force in American life for people of color.

The "niggerization" of black Americans by the American legal system continues unabated with the George Zimmerman "not guilty" verdict.