On July 13, 2013 a six female jury acquitted George Zimmerman for the death of 17 year old child, Trayvon Martin. Martin’s murder brought back a chilling reminder of the death another unarmed and innocent black teen, Emmet Till – decades earlier.
The strategy employed to bring public outcry to the killing of unarmed black people more 60 years ago and today is same. Something has to change, we didn’t learn the very valuable lesson from the Montgomery bus strikes – employed by the civils right movements led by Rosa Parks and MLK.
Black people we have money now!
How was Zimmerman able to escape true justice
The thing that stood out to me most, was how Zimmerman’s defense team was able to take on the might of the US prosecutorial system and won. Even with the copious amount of evidence against him.
How was Zimmerman able to put up such a sustained legal defense?
The answer was simple, he somehow used race as a shield to galvanize some public support – that also came with donations. His legal defense team slowly chipped away at the humanity and incense of the slain teenager (who died from a unprovoked attack).
Zimmerman, at the time of the trial was very unpopular figure and even now more so – but his defense team knew they needed to gather just a bit more public and financial support.
And so, allegedly, some if not most of Zimmerman’s legal fees were paid by members of the public. If that was the case – that a few or more – total strangers helped him to beat the courts, why can’t black Americans adopt this same strategy amongst ourselves?
Black Americans, as combined unit is insanely wealthy
Black Americans have a tremendous combined spending power that has been steadily increasing over the years. According to a report released by Nielsen in 2017, the collective buying power of African Americans was estimated to be $1.2 trillion.
This figure reached $1.6 trillion in 2021, making black Americans one of the most powerful economic forces in the nation. This spending power has enabled black Americans to become major contributors to the economy and has helped to create jobs and increase the economic prosperity of their communities.
The enhanced spending power of black Americans has also allowed them to invest in businesses, purchase their own homes, and gain access to better educational opportunities.
Time for a different approach
Police as we know them today – and since inception really – are employed to protect property not people. Th problem is far too many of them today can’t see the humanity before wielding their batons.
A policeman today would surely think long and hard before shooting an unarmed member of any other race – why not black Americans? Well they know one thing, that even a people with more than $1.6 trillion dollars will not come together to save one of their own.
If we can only replicate the support Zimmerman got from total strangers, for our own surely the system would think twice before raising their weapons against US.