The youngest witness to Trayvon Martin’s heinous murder was 13 year old Austin McLendon. He was standing just 20 yards away. Asked about that night, McLendon said he can’t shake the memory of screams and gunfire from his mind.
Austin McLendon should have never had to hear those screams. Now, they rattle around in his daydreams. They keep him up at night and take the place of his concentration on more important things. Those screams raise questions in the young mind of Austin McLendon: what If that had been him instead of Trayvon Martin that night?
The screams, the questions and the outrage should not be confined to the mind of Austin McLendon. They should not be hid under the proverbial bushel in Sanford, Florida. The true facts in this case must come to light. Tough questions have to be asked and answered. Austin McLendon should not be the only one forced to wrestle with the screams of Trayvon Martin.
The facts on the surface are suspect and raise many questions. Why George Zimmerman, a 250 pound man with a 9mm handgun, saw it as “self-defense” to shoot a 17 year old black male weighing it at a scrawny 140 pounds, armed with a bag of candy and an iced tea?
George Zimmerman is a free man. Trayvon Martin is dead.
Trayvon Martin is dead because he was guilty of being black.
Transcripts of the 911 confirm that Zimmerman described Martin as “being on drugs” and “suspicious”. Neither of which appear to be true, but even if they were do not warrant a death sentence.
The Trayvon Martin case signals that it’s time for the United States as a nation to have a serious conversation on racial profiling and on Florida’s lenient and discriminatory “Stand your ground” law.
Why you won’t find Nancy Grace or Greta Van Susteren leading their shows with the story is simple. The reasons why the Sanford police have released George Zimmerman and corrected witnesses to help corroborate his story are simple. They aren’t comfortable having such a conversation.
This is a case that should go straight to Attorney General Eric Holder. The Sanford police do not have the right to be the judge and jury. George Zimmerman should be charged with a hate crime and tried before a jury of his peers. The Florida law that essentially gives its citizens the right to commit murder should be re-written.
Dr. Martin Luther King did not sit in a Birmingham jail cell so that people like George Zimmerman could walk away from a murder of an innocent young man without being charged. Harriett Tubman did not embark on more than 13 missions to secretly lead slaves to freedom, and Rosa Parks did not keep her seat on a bus so that racial profiling and stereotyping could be allowed to happen without consequence. These are pioneers of racial equality and equal rights and the actions that are associated with this story spits in the face of the trails they blazed and the principles they fought for.
It’s time for a conversation. It is time for a conversation about why someone like George Zimmerman was allowed to have a concealed weapon; why he was able to use it to commit such an injustice? It is time for a conversation about race and why Trayvon Martin is really dead.
Trayvon Martin should be alive; Austin McClendon should be free from the screams he hears at night when we pillows his head and no person should fear for their life because of the color of their skin.
The life of Trayvon Martin should not have been lived and lost in vain. We must make sure that Trayvon did not die to send this country back to the 1960’s. May his death be the beginning, albeit a sad one, of an honest, open dialogue promoting a better understanding of race, violence and equal treatment under the law.
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