Monday, August 5, 2013

I Thought I Could Fly...

February 26th, 2012


Sanford, Florida, USA.


Tragedy, race, prejudice, anger, outrage, and pain collided on that fateful morning.


A teenage boy in a gray hooded sweatshirt. Candy and an iced tea.


A mixed-race Hispanic male.


One bullet.


Two lives destroyed.


Two deaths.


Thousands of lives impacted.


The Retreat at Twin Lakes.


Forbidding gates with a welcoming name.


A neighborhood worth WATCHING.


With GROUND WORTH STANDING.


I've been a bit reluctant to tackle the Martin/Zimmerman "controversy" mainly because I do not see it as a controversy at its core. Tragedy. Race. Racism. Prejudice. Anger. Fear. Outrage. And Pain. All these things take precedence over the controversy. Maybe, in some way, they are the ingredients that make up controversy. Murder is the "crime" of unlawfully killing a person, especially with malice aforethought. Which for me begs the question of when EXACTLY is killing a person lawful. What does lawful mean? Who decides what lawful is. To KILL is to DEPRIVE of LIFE. And DEATH is the END of LIFE. SUICIDE, at least in part, is to put (oneself) to DEATH.  


Here is what I take away from these very simple definitions: That within this controversy, one man was murdered. Another man was killed. That two deaths have taken place. And that in these two deaths, hundreds of thousands of lives have been affected. Trayvon Martin was murdered. His murderer, in having committed this act, killed himself as well (which resulted in a type of suicide).  This disastrous event has no winners. A 'Not Guilty' verdict is not a WIN (by it's literal definition).  Nor is it completely a LOSS. To me it feels much more like a CALAMITY.    


All of this brings to mind Bob Dylan's "Only A Pawn in Their Game". This CALAMITY isn't simply a question of race, or racism. Of hatred, or prejudice. It's also a moral question. An economic and political question. A question coupled with a circus mirror reflecting the ever-evolving nature of our “humanity”.


It's not as easy as good versus evil or the righteous versus the wicked. Here we've been reminded that murder is not purely the crime of criminals, but also of law-abiding citizens. Of the courageous. And the fearful. Now rather than a tragedy endured by two families, this event has become a political opportunity punctuated by fear and words of hatred with spins from both the left and the right.


Two men lost their lives. And thousands have had their lives impacted for better or worse.  This song. My song is my attempt to offer a different perspective on it. To bring it back to the FACT that two men lost their lives here. And that there is a huge potential for many more to lose their lives if this situation is not handled appropriately. I asked myself what would Trayvon want? What might George Zimmerman be thinking in his private moments? What might they say to each other if no one else was around to witness the conversation?


I'm sure my attempted humanization will offend a few of you. To you, I ask if you know what it's like to take a man's life? Do you know what that feels like? Have you experienced that guilt? The nightmares? The ulcers? The cold sweats? The remorse? The shame? The self-condemnation? Maybe you have. If not, I would urge you to try, even if just for a second, to imagine doing something, making a split-second decision, that garnered worldwide news and forever changed your life. For the worse. That forever changed the landscape of your nation. Try to imagine being forever recorded in the history books as a murderer. A racist murderer. Then imagine NOT being able to apologize. To the person you murdered. The family you destroyed. The nation you transformed. The world you changed.


A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.
- Bob Dylan


We all have a story. Here's mine.