Leading up to it--some thoughts from Sanford, FL

So it's 12:30am, Monday, June 10, 2013 and I'm sitting at a desk in a motel just outside the historic district of Sanford, Florida. Between reading Facebook links leading to stories about Bradley Manning, Trayvon Martin (one, two, three), Benny Warr, Edward Snowden, Fatima Woods, and eviction defenses/housing as a human right (one, two), and a report issued by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in April 2013 titled “Operation Ghetto Storm” that highlights the “extrajudicial killings of 313 black people by police, security guards, and vigilantes,... Every 28 Hours” in 2012, I'm reminded of the fact that the world is one of interconnection. So as I watch the trial of George Zimmerman, my heart is in Rochester where I'm missing an organizing meeting focused on Benny Warr and Enough is Enough and a community march lead by youth from Teen Empowerment in the southwest of the city. Of course, these things relate back to Trayvon Martin, gun control, latent and overt forms of individual and institutional racism, and the general move toward more and more authoritarianism and fascism on Turtle Island (as if we aren't there yet...).

Shortly after participating in solidarity rallies in Rochester supporting the Martin family in 2012, I made the decision to come to Sanford and participate in the proceedings. This week I am observing and reporting on jury selection--a process that could easily take up to three weeks--in the trial of George Zimmerman who faces a second degree murder charge for the killing of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin—mind you, a murder charge that came 45 days after the fact. I hope to return in early July to see some of the trial, but nothing is certain. That said, my first experiences with white people in Florida, regarding the case, were disheartening.

This past weekend, I was at a wedding anniversary party a few hours away from Sanford. The celebration was great but the excuses in defense of Zimmerman were not. I think my initial reaction was to listen, followed by confusion and pity, as I tried to figure out how convoluted, seemingly racist justifications made sense.

One man (white, older) approached me and very directly asked me about my stay in Sanford. When I explained that I was going to be observing and reporting on the trial, he smiled and without missing a beat laid out his opinion and what he would do if he were a juror. He harped on the fact that Judge Debra Nelson rejected the defense's request to allow images and texts of a normal high school kid's behavior into court. He told me that this was wrong because it held back potentially damning evidence that the jury could use to exonerate Zimmerman. I remember him asking me again and again if I believed in a fair trial. I explained that the request should have been denied because it had no relevance to the case other than to smear Martin's character. He retorted that Zimmerman was the person with a smeared character. I reminded him that Zimmerman was told not to follow Martin by the 911 dispatch and that he had had a questionable history as the self-proclaimed security guard of the neighborhood. It went on like this for a couple of minutes as we were getting our salads from the salad bar. He concluded his discussion with me by positing this argument: If he was a juror and he didn't have access to every single shred of evidence—regardless of its relevancy—then he would not find Zimmerman guilty. This was not shocking. He sounded ignorant—not only of the details of the case so far, but even his lack of understanding what juries are charged with.

Unsurprisingly, he was not alone in his perception that somehow Zimmerman was not getting a fair trail. This was something I heard repeatedly over the weekend. The two other perceptions I heard was that I should watch my back in Sanford—the underlying racist insinuation being that Sanford had a lot of crime perpetrated by people of color—and that if the jury ruled in favor of Zimmerman, then I could expect riots where black people would be burning down the town.

Dreadful, disheartening, enraging crap.

Dispatch two is on the way.