A vigil for Trayvon Martin was held Monday night in Columbia Heights. (Photo by Joe Newman)
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last month in Sanford, Fla., told police he did so because he felt threatened by the teen and acted under a statute that allows Florida residents to use lethal force when they believe their life is in danger.
It’s called the “Stand Your Ground” law, but in the wake of Martin’s death, it’s been rightly examined as a vehicle for a most brutal kind of racial profiling—and for good measure in Zimmerman’s case. Many details of what happened in the moments before Martin, who was black, was shot, remain murky, though it is known that Zimmerman made several 911 calls complaining about Martin, whom he might have referred to using racial epithets.
And when Fox News host Geraldo Rivera said Martin’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt was just as responsible for the boy’s death as Zimmerman’s trigger finger, it thrust into a bright spotlight the conversation over how young black men are treated.
Since Martin’s death, Howard University students have held several rallies and vigils in the boy’s memory. And in new YouTube video, several male students at the historically black university, are attempting to tackle the racial issues surrounding Martin’s killing head on.
“Am I Suspicious?” features Howard students, donning hooded sweatshirts, asking the camera that very question and trying to explain that young black men are not, by definition, suspicious.
“Unfortunately, for Trayvon,” says Howard Corday, a graduate of Howard’s business and law schools, “we will never know what was in store for him, all because America believed this innocent child was suspicious.”
It’s more thoughtful stuff from a student body that has been at the forefront of raising awareness not just of an awful incident, but of the political and psychological factors that may have fueled Martin’s death. At a campus rally last week, the president of Howard’s student association likened events such as Zimmerman’s slaying of Martin as a disease on society.
“When you think of injustice, I look at it like cancer,” said Brandon Harris, according to the Post. “We have to be the chemotherapy.”
Watch the video below:
