Zimmerman Walks Free
How Long Will This System Continue to Get Away With Murder?
by Carl Dix | July 13, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
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NOT GUILTY!?! This verdict is an outrage, a punch to the gut, a slap in the face. The facts could not be clearer. George Zimmerman saw a Black youth with a hoodie, decided he was "up to no good," stalked him, confronted him, and shot him through the heart. And, after all that people did to force the authorities to put Zimmerman on trial—the lynching reality of this country remains in effect. The killer walks free. Another Black youth buried.
The real question of this trial was not murder or "self-defense." It was whether the Trayvon Martins of this world have a right to survive, flourish, and to get justice if they’re attacked—or whether the Zimmermans of this world have a supposed right to murder them with impunity. The system has given its answer.
This outrageous verdict of not guilty is an open declaration of placing a target on the backs of a whole generation of Black and Latino youth—under the guise of "letting the system work." This verdict is the system working, and such a system has been exposed through this trial, and in many, many, many other ways as unjust, a horror and illegitimate.
Here we are. Those who are telling people that they have to "accept" the verdict are telling us to accept a modern-day lynching…to accept the police gunning-down of Black and Latino youth…to accept the warehousing of 2.2 million people into prisons. Their message is clear: the system can continually enforce oppressive and murderous relations on the people, but the people cannot stand up.
No! The murder of Trayvon Martin: unacceptable.
No! The way this trial was conducted: unacceptable.
No! The verdict of this trial: unacceptable.
And people have the right to stand up and express their seething anger, which is deeply felt, which has been just below the surface, in many ways.
This is a moment to express our outrage. A moment to act together against a howling injustice. A moment for all with a sense of justice in their hearts to stand with the people, to condemn this verdict, and let it be known in all kinds of ways: NO MORE. And if people who take to the streets come under attack, they must be supported. Authorities who criminalize and brutalize people cannot be allowed to beat, corral, pepper-spray people or worse for opposing their brutality.
Enough! The legacy of slavery continues. The legacy of Jim Crow continues. The reality of a New Jim Crow is lived today, and it kills. Youth like Trayvon are murdered by cops and vigilantes who almost never get punished for their crimes. Tens of thousands of youth are put into prisons every year. It is part of an overall program of brutality and suppression that amounts to a slow genocide that is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of countless millions of oppressed people. And as the jury delivered its "not guilty" verdict in Florida, 30,000 prisoners in California are engaged in a heroic strike against inhumane and savage conditions of solitary confinement. This is the reality of this system.
But there is also the reality that Trayvon Martin and youth like him DO NOT have to die or face lives of unending brutality and misery. Any society that does what this country does to oppressed people here and around the world for centuries should not be allowed to continue. A radically different and far better society and world is possible—where the Trayvon Martins and Rachel Jeantels and countless millions like them can flourish, take creative initiative, and contribute everything they have to offer to the whole of society and towards the emancipation of humanity.
This is possible through revolution. A revolution that can end all the horrors this system inflicts on humanity—the oppression of Black people, the degradation faced by women, the wars for empire, the ravaging of the environment and more. This revolution is based on the theory of Bob Avakian. If you want no more of this world and its brutality and misery, get into Bob Avakian's work. Get with the Party that BA leads, the Revolutionary Communist Party. There is a way out of the madness and oppression.
The stakes are high. It’s about right and wrong. It’s about the kind of world we want to live in.
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