I have really been shocked at the stridency with which so
many white folk – otherwise intelligent, even liberal white folk – have engaged
in semantic gymnastics in an effort to justify the Zimmerman verdict and
criticize those who see injustice. The righteous
anger in defense of Zimmerman is startling, even for someone like me, who has
grown accustomed to racial animus as a fact of life. But why has this case struck such a nerve, in
the white community as well as in the black community?
I think back to something a very wise, sympathetic figure
said about me more than a decade ago.
I was still closeted, and had not come to terms with my
sexuality. I was engaged in furious online debates with this man, who was
unapologetically open about his orientation. I came up with every argument in
the book as to why he was wrong, mistaken, sinful, sick, twisted, and
deluded. I would grasp at any weird
event that had happened in the gay community, and attempted to characterize it
as ‘normal’ for that group. With each such bizarre post, I would punctuate my
comments with the equivalent of “A-ha!
See?! You’re a
hypocrite/wrong/blind blah blah blah." I was irrational in my need to prove I was right.
This gentlemen with whom I was debating wrote a private message
to someone else, who had the courage to send it to me. What it said was,
“Thom is a man conflicted.
You fight yourself the hardest, and he is not really fighting me…he is
fighting himself.”
That insight was brilliant.
I have never forgotten it (eternal thanks, John/Jane Z)
And I see the same concept manifesting itself among white
people in the aftermath of the trial.
White people who insist that they are not racist, because,
in their heads, they know it's a bad thing to be racist.
But for who, in their guts, still have knee-jerk feelings...based on race.
In their hearts, they know they distrust blacks more than whites. They know they’re even afraid of blacks, and
will cross the street to avoid them.
They know in their gut that when they hear about welfare queens and
people who rip-off the tax system, they envision a black family. They can’t avoid these feelings, often
because they were raised in an environment where they were taught to fear and
loathe blacks.
But, they know in their heads that such misplaced hate and
prejudice is simply wrong. Ergo, they deal with a conflict between the head and
the gut.
And so, “they fight themselves the hardest.” They scour their minds and the internet and
every cliché they can find to make sure that they can satisfy the racial fears
in their guts by lauding Zimmerman, without violating their conscience
which tells them that racial fear is not a good enough reason.
They throw punches in the air:
“Black on black crime is much worse…”
“No one ever talks about a white kid getting killed by
blacks…”
“The jury spoke, it’s over…”
“You don’t see whites rioting…”
“Zimmerman was being pummeled…”
“It’s the media’s fault…”
"He was a thug.."
“If Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton wouldn't get involved….”
“The civil war ended over a hundred years ago, and all you
people do is talk about race…”
Of course, not one of these arguments is a legitimate reason
to support George Zimmerman. Not one of them addresses the District Attorney’s
sweeping this under the rug for 45 days, the misuse of the Stand Your Ground Statute
and the refusal of the Judge to issue jury instructions on that matter, the admission
of concrete slabs and shirtless pictures of Trayvon as evidence, the lack of
*any* pre-emptory challenges by the prosecution over jurors, the lack of any
men or blacks on the jury, the fact that Zimmerman’s father was a local Judge and the venue wasn't changed, and a host of other suspect irregularities.
But what these folk are doing is not fighting for or against
Justice.
They are using George Zimmerman as a proxy for
themselves.
They know that George suspected Trayvon, because Trayvon was a young black man in a gated, middle class neighborhood.
And they know they would have
felt the same.
Putting Zimmerman on trial is like putting them on trial.
And so the only way to fight the inner vestiges of racism in
their gut, is to ‘fight themselves the hardest’ – lash out and defend Zimmerman
any way they can, so they can avoid the ugly reality of having to reconcile Gut
with Mind.
It’s an irrational, ugly, brutal process.
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