A Black Man in a Hoodie Is a Threat: The Verdict that Wounded Obama’s America

Killing “Little Black Riding Hood” is not an offense in Florida, if a Caucasian neighborhood watchman is the one to shoot.

Unfair “racial justice” strikes again with the acquittal of the young Caucasian neighborhood watchman who killed a 17-year-old black teenager guilty only of scaring him with his hoodie sweatshirt. Obama has called for “calm reflection.” So far, there have only been a few smashed windows, a police car turned upside-down in Oakland and a storm of indignant tweets in the futile song of electronic chirps.

However, the acquittal of George Zimmerman — who unloaded his gun on Trayvon Martin, armed only with Skittles — did not really surprise anyone. Sadness, more than anger, is what lit fires along train tracks here and there. “I am devastated by sadness,” tweeted Trayvon’s mother Sybrina Fulton, “and I put my faith in Jesus’ love. Lord, during my darkest hour I lean on you. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control.”*

However, the Lord did not listen to Sybrina’s prayers when, in Sanford, Fla. on Saturday night at 9:30 p.m., the six women who formed the jury declared her son’s murderer not guilty: Not guilty of second-degree murder, therefore not deliberate or intentional.

They were able to do so thanks to a Florida state law that has expanded the limits of self-defense from “direct threat” to “perception of threat.” For them, the appearance of that black teenager with a hoodie in a Florida suburb mainly inhabited by white people — where a series of thefts had kindled fear — and the confrontation with Trayvon, who asked Zimmerman why on earth had he been following him with his car, were threatening enough to justify the shot fired by the aspiring Robin Hood vigilante. The gun was registered, and in Florida it is legal to carry a hidden weapon in a waistband holster as Zimmerman did.

During the investigation, and later during the trial that occupied the TV networks during live hours, the idea of justice for all races — more than the facts, the testimonials and depositions, and the evidence — was what grabbed the attention of millions. All the protagonists, actors, media and the political community, starting with Obama, knew very well the question the trial would have to answer: Was Trayvon Martin, who had not done anything illegal, a threat because he was a black teenager in a white neighborhood? The answer: Yes.

This is racial profiling — characterizing an individual based on their “racial profile”: the Latino, a lazy scoundrel; the Italian, a Mafioso; the black man, a violent criminal. This is the mechanism that leads patrols on the streets to stop and check the IDs and documents of African-Americans who drive luxury cars. This is the attitude that had George Zimmerman worried, then terrified, when following the hooded teenager. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin” said President Obama when, in the days following the Feb. 26, 2012 murder, he intervened to stir the police and the prosecutor.

The night of Trayvon’s death the police released his murderer after medical dressings for the small cuts he got on his neck in the resort to self-defense, and the black community of Florida, along with African-American leaders and the media, rebelled. After 44 days, the prosecutor finally filed charges that would lead to the trial. For the American conservatives and their voices in the media, it was a political trial, created to satisfy Obama’s electorate and African-American lobbies. For others, it was the exact opposite, as confirmed by the question that Rev. Al Sharpton and senior activists like Jesse Jackson continued to repeat: Had it been a black teenager to shoot and kill a 29-year-old white male like Zimmerman, would he have gotten away with a few questions at the police station and then be released?

Although 50 years have passed since the Martin Luther King assassination riots in the ghettos and more than 20 since the Los Angeles uprising caused by the acquittal of the policemen who brutally beat Rodney King, unaware that they were being videotaped, the racial volcano’s crust is still too thin to be disturbed. There is lava boiling below.

The investigation and the trial, built on fragile evidence, have taken place, and the cold reality of the courts has been revealed: Justice is the machinery that decides whose attorneys were better. Yesterday, on Sunday, churches of the African-American community were open the entire day — beyond religious functions — to welcome, give vent to and peacefully channel the sadness, frustration and bitterness of many. Only in Oakland, the city that has seen and continues to see the most explosive racial tensions, rocks, sticks and screams have been thrown in a manner more customary than substantive. Trayvon’s family has now vowed to ask for federal charges of violation of their deceased son’s civil rights. This is the same formula that achieved the conviction of the Los Angeles police officers who were initially acquitted in the Rodney King case. It’s just the same with George Zimmerman: A free man, acquitted because he was scared of the frightful modern-day fairy tale of “Little Black Riding Hood.”

*Editor’s Note: This quote, accurately translated, could not be verified.