trayvon

The shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida has certainly kicked up a firestorm of controversy. It's bringing up issues of race, property rights, gun control, murder laws, and race (yeah, I said it twice; in fact, I'll say it three times: race). The controversy has reminded somewhat of the Joe Horn controversy from 2007, which happened in my hometown. The situations are extremely different (Horn shot two men robbing a house while George Zimmerman shot an unarmed teenager), but share the core similarity of a convergence of property and gun laws in a powder keg of racial and ethnic tension.

President Obama recently weighed in on the controversy for the first time, and the money quote used by many websites in their headlines was, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." I was kind of frustrated that this was the only thing it seems most Americans heard from Obama's statement, since the president's words were more well-rounded than that short soundbite.

The soundbite is important, however, and there's a reason it has stuck as quote ringing in everyone's ears. It struck a chord with me, since if I have a son one day, he may look like Trayvon as well.

I am Caucasian; my wife is African-American. Yes, if we have kids they'll be biracial, but the way race is socialized in the US, most people who see my kids will think, "They're black." So when you have a case where an unarmed African-American boy is murdered walking down a street for "looking suspicious," I automatically think, "There's no way I'd want to have a family there." This isn't some abstract concept for me, it's a matter of life and death for my kids. I don't want them in a community where their skin color will automatically mark them as inferior or suspect in the eyes of their neighbors.

Now, it appears that many Americans, mostly Anglos, have dismissed the race angle of this case as overblown political wrangling. The real issue, in their minds, is the meaning of self-defense and justice. This doesn't mean these people support Martin's shooter, but they'd instead argue that the only injustice is that the shooter killed an unarmed child and wasn't arrested. In their minds, to "bring race into it" just causes a distraction.

I think this is because white Americans have the choice to ignore racial politics if they so desire. As a white man, I can choose to look only at the case as shooter and victim and "look past race." However, for many African-Americans and other minorities, race is the heart of the issue at hand. This is because if I go walking through the neighborhood where Martin died, I don't have to worry about someone shooting me because I'm wearing a hoodie. On the other hand, it's impossible for a person of color to walk through that area and not have that fear pop into his or her head.

"But wait! That's not true! There are lots of neighborhoods out there where whites ARE the minority! Lots of white people encounter situations where they feel discriminated against, just like minorities! You can't say that whites don't deal with that!"

Well, OK then, I see your point. I've lived in more than one place where I, as a white person, was statistically in the minority: I grew up in Pasadena, Texas, a predominantly Latino suburb of Houston, and attended a predominantly Latino high school; I currently live in Inglewood, California, a predominantly African-American suburb of Los Angeles. I have walked down streets where I feared something bad might happen to me simply because of my skin color. I have experienced incidents of racism against me.

But I suggest to you that these incidents I have experienced were just that: incidents. The system isn't stacked against me.

When I interview for a job I don't have to worry about whether I'll be denied the job because of my race, or if I'm hired that people will question my credentials. When I sat in lectures at my university and seminary I didn't have to worry that my perspective and my history weren't going to be acknowledged. I have a very distinct memory of walking down an ill-lit street in Pasadena, California one night and passing a cop car parked on the curb; as I walked by and the police officers ignored me, I thought, "Man, that might have played out differently if I was black or Latino."

I recall reading a book called Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. The main point made by authors Michael Emerson and Christian Smith that sticks with me is this: When a white person talks of racism, he or she usually means special instances of racial discrimination. When a person of color talks of racism, he or she usually means the overriding structure of society. Emerson and Smith give a powerful analogy:

"If a building is on the verge of collapse due to an inadequate design, improving the quality of the bricks without improving the design is not a solution. Evangelicals, for all their recent energy directed at dealing with race problems, are attempting to improve the bricks, even having bricks better cemented to other bricks, but they are not doing anything about the faulty structural design. If their focus continues to be only on making better bricks, their expenditure of energy will largely be in vain." (p. 130)

If we look at incidents like the death of Trayvon Martin and respond by simply calling for better background checks for gun owners or a change to castle doctrine laws, we've missed the point entirely. Everyone I know who could have kids that look like Trayvon knows what's at stake here. My hope is those whose kids don't look like Trayvon can get a vision for what's at stake as well.

I'll say one last thing: I resisted writing a post about this because so much has already been written and said that I didn't feel I had anything to add. After a conversation about the controversy with my wife yesterday, I realized that people need to keep talking about it and discussing it across social media if anything's ever going to change. This is a dialogue that needs to continue, so this is my small piece of it.