Time and Perspective

When the case of Trayvon Martin's shooting at the hands of a Neighborhood Watch volunteer first exploded onto the national news scene a few months ago, as many other like-minded people I saw it as fairly straightforward - a vigilante had shot an unarmed teenager, and there was little more to debate. But I held back from blogging about it, certain that there were many details missing, knowingly or unknowingly omitted or distorted, and willing to wager that with time, the story would twist and turn beyond imagination. Rarely have I been more prescient and never has less ridden on my clairvoyance, and from the horrific 911 calls, to the "eyewitnesses" who offered inconsistent stories and whose eyewitness status was sometimes unclear, to the edited 911 tapes and a plethora of first hazy and then enhanced photos of the shooter, the story seemed to change daily. And the wider story associated with it also changed, from an out-of-control vigilante, to racist shadings, to strange counter campaigns against and in favor of hooded sweatshirts.

All of which showed only one thing, beyond doubt: there is no issue imaginable, that will not be hotly and passionately contested by the right and left wing of the national polity. And whatever position has been staked out by the one side will immediately be opposed by the other, even if their positions represent a diametrically opposite stance from the day before. I was especially disappointed in the tactics employed by the supporters of the slain teen, many of them self-professed liberals. I have, of course, long held that the loudest liberals are anything but and would be better described as leftwingers since they lack a true liberal attitude towards opposing points of view.  The worst was to hear these liberals start arguments with a disclaimer that the shooter's personal life and history were unimportant, and then go on to list all the negative details of that history - an underhanded way to undermine the man's character whilst simultaneously staking claim to a moral high road. Other supporters were even worse, with one person revealing the shooter's home address - no matter what one believes about the man's actions and motives, inviting another vigilante to intervene is unacceptable, and hypocritical. I suppose the Black Panthers make no claims to liberal attitude, and hence their reward for action in the case, while a poorly disguised call to vigilante justice, and reprehensible, at least should not reflect poorly on progressives in general. I would not say that the right-wing supporters of the shooter were any better, but I have never expected much from gun-rights advocates, and I deliberately hold  them to a lower standard than I do liberals.

But while a court will now debate the rights and wrongs of the case against the shooter, the story that unfolded aside from the shooting itself is more interesting and disturbing. The National Rifle Association has long belied its name by advocating for access to all sorts of handguns, and the right to use deadly force in any circumstances. They have succeeded beyond my worst nightmares and it is a testament to their success and tactics that they can still portray themselves as an oppressed group in danger of losing their weapons, even as a man who shot an unarmed teenager walked free after a brief statement to the police. It is also a testament of sorts, but to what I cannot say, that advocates for gun control know that news of an unarmed teenager shot down in his own neighborhood by a private citizen would be met with apathy that they sought to inject racist overtones into the story as the only way to draw support and interest. Indeed, it was the seemingly race-tinged aspects of the case that garnered far more interest nationally than the actual facts - an unarmed teenager, walking home from the store to his soon-to-be stepmother's house crossed paths with a volunteer watchman who consciously chose to precipitate that encounter, and at some point thereafter the teen was shot by the watchman. To any advocate of common-sense gun control, the fact that a teen, or man of any age, can be shot by a person who chose to initiate or at least precipitate the encounter is a tragedy; that the shooter can claim full right to do so under the law is a travesty. But America has drifted backwards to a state of almost mythical Wild West proportions, where every violent act is met with apathy at best, or a clamor for more weapons of violence. There are over fifty thousand homicides every year and half as many accidental deaths, but the merchants of death aver that the secret to less violence is more instruments of violence, more widely distributed amongst the population. Never mind that following in their logic, there was from start to finish only one way the encounter between teen and vigilante could possibly end, if both men were armed, and neither had the duty to deescalate the situation, or avoid a confrontation bullets would fly and one or both men would die, and possibly some people, some bystanders might have been reluctant participants as repositories for some stray bullets as well. It's fairly clear that under most circumstances, arming more people would never result in less violence, only more, but that is a message that may not be spoken today, much less will it be heeded by those who shape our laws.

There is a need in America today to debate issues, in depth and with reason and respect for opposing view points. Unfortunately, this does not happen, and seems ever less likely to happen. I am not looking back with rose-colored glasses, and it's obvious that intolerance of opposing views is hardly new in America or the world in general - Senator Joe McCarthy was not noted for his breadth of acceptance when it came to different political opinions, but what has changed is the medium of deliverance and the time we take to offer an opinion and respond to others' viewpoints. In the world of Demosthenes, it would take weeks, even months for a debate to play out and while the Laconians may have been celebrated for their exceedingly brief style of discussion, in general the lengthy periods between pronunciations left a correspondingly greater time for one to think over both positions and weigh the merits of all views. In a world of short attention spans, debate has been reduced to simply stating one's position in made-for-TV soundbites, devoid of substance and certainly not designed to engage the opposition in any meaningful dialogue. This is true of every topic, from union rights to Wall Street criminal behavior, from environmental protection to national security. And all too often the conversation is taken over by unelected actors, unanswerable to anyone, but possessed of great resources and a passion to thrust their view upon the world. Eschewing all compromise, the only intent appears to be to sweep aside opposition, no matter how reasonable their contrary logic may be or how small the differences may be. Misrepresenting one's opponent's position is a key method of discrediting their actual message and in a political world where citizens choose to get their news from outlets that already share their own positions, a nuanced dialogue is well nigh impossible.

And the Trayvon Martin case has highlighted, all too clearly the deep divides in society. Whether it was outrage that the President expressed empathy with the victim, and the victim's parents, or deplorable attempts to portray the shooter as racist, even to manipulating evidence to "prove" that theory or the intriguing idea that the real culprit in the shooting wasn't the man with the gun but rather the hooded sweatshirt the victim wore, the two sides have consistently talked over one another and done everything in their power to discredit the opposing camp. However, now that the case has been moved to the courts, it's time for everyone to take a deep breath and step back from screaming epithets at each other for a moment. It is interesting that if one simply listens to the other side, there are some reasonable, even cogent ideas that deserve rational scrutiny - perhaps one will reject them anyway after study, but at least study them rather than reject them out-of-hand. 

One issue that comes readily to mind is the rough treatment that one Fox commentator received for suggesting that the real culprit in the whole tragedy was the hooded sweatshirt worn by the victim. No doubt the gentleman was mistaken - the real culprit was the attitudes that drove the confrontation -  but there is nevertheless some truth to his opinion, no matter how poorly expressed. In a media storm where any criticism of the victim can be used to tarnish the speaker with the charge of racism the ugly truth behind his words are ignored. Racism did drive the tragedy, but it was not necessarily the overt racist attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan; rather it was the kind of almost subconscious thinking that tinges our every action with racist overtones whether we know it or not. Racism is not a simple "black vs white" or "white vs everyone else" story - every ethnic group is guilty to different levels (ask the average Chinese or Japanese person about the other, and there may be attitudes that would make the Grand Wizard ashamed). We, who pride ourselves on having risen above racial stereotyping need to only ask ourselves about how we'd react to meeting a group of African American teenagers in sweathshirts and drooping pants as against meeting, say, Chinese kids in similar attire. For myself, I know that I am infinitely more nervous around an all white group of bikers than any of my white co-workers would be - I do not consider myself an overt racist (though I don't pretend for a moment that I have risen past prejudice) but I still project my deep-hidden racially-driven fears onto a group I know nothing about and that fear fuels my reaction to them. When a person embraces a culture that furthers a dangerous stereotype - the hoodies, the faux chains and beltless pants around their knees that bespeak a gangster - it only furthers the unconscious reaction in the people around. The overzealous captain was very likely not driven by any racist beliefs, but his actions may well have been subtly influenced by racial bias all the same. While I would still demand that he answer for his actions, I do not believe that he should be libeled as a racist, not for a bias that not only lingers in even the most liberal and progressive of us, and which is constantly reinforced overtly and covertly through every media around us daily.

In the run-up to the last presidential election, Barack Obama delivered a landmark speech on race relations, effortlessly straddling the deep divide between the more conservative views on either side of the racial line. This would be a good time for a new speech addressing the less obvious divide between even middle of the road members of every racial and ethnic group. Meanwhile, as the Florida legal system prepares to try the man at the center of the tragedy, we would all be better served if we spent less time judging the principal actors and more time addressing our own inadequacies and  in the words of Polonious, "Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act...Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment." If there is one mistake that the shooter himself would admit, it would be hasty judgement based on superficial understanding and incomplete information, and it led to a tragic killing. Rushing to emulate that mistake would serve us no better.