Trayvon Martin: A Native Sun in the Shadow of the Hood
An essay from 25 March 2012
by Barry Michael Cooper
“Yet man is born into trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”
Job 5:7
In the digital buzz constructed by the honeycomb of social networking, the murder of 17-year-old Travyon Martin swells with the poisonous sting of American racism. Until a few weeks ago—before the marches, the rallies, the trending topics, the blogposts, and the page one and lead TV news stories—Trayvon was a young Floridian growing up in Miami Gardens and known only to his family, friends, and classmates. A smaller circumference of people in Trayvon Martin’s orbit, who could have never imagined the horror waiting for him on 26 February 2012, inside the gated cul de sac of Twin Lakes, located in Sanford, Fla. Trayvon’s parents—his mom, Sybrina Fulton, and his dad, Tracy Martin—knew their sun beamed with the promise of a bright future. Trayvon was Luke Skywalker in the land of Rick Ro$$. Trayvon rocked a hoodie, but it couldn’t hide his shine. Trayvon Martin had a mind and a heart that was built by GOD, and lifted on the wings of his family’s love.
It’s no wonder Travyon Martin wanted to be a pilot.
Maybe Trayvon saw a career in the United States Air Force or United Airlines. Maybe he could have been the commander of the first shuttle mission to Mars. However, on the night of 26 February, Trayvon Martin—who had gone to the neighborhood store to buy Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea during the half-time of the 2012 NBA All Star Game—became an HD Native Sun dimmed by a myopic world obscured by its opaque past, and mired in the quicksand of modern racial hatred. A quicksand vibrating with the thunderous discord of Jim Crow ghost clocks. Many in this country thought those ghost clocks stopped ticking on 20 January 2009; only to be rewound at the shock of seeing an African-American man being sworn into the Oval Office.
The same ghost clocks that tick-tocked inside the brain of one George Zimmerman, a broken 28-year-old man of Caucasian and Latino parentage. The same George Zimmerman, who—despite fervent cries to the contrary—seemed to consider African-American men both “assholes” and “coons”; filthy epithets he whispered into his 911 call to the Sanford police department the evening of 26 February.
The night George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in cold blood.
Growing up in Manassas, VA, George Zimmerman wanted to be an alter boy, but when his dad Richard, his mom Gladys, and two other siblings moved to Florida, he decided he wanted to be a cop. Zimmerman’s career choice may or may not have been a result of him being the victim of a minor criminal assault back in 2001, according to a recent article in the Washington Post (don’t be surprised if someone leaks a report that George Zimmerman was the victim of a teenage assault by African American men, as if that will be an apologia for the inexcusable).
In 2005, Zimmerman was arrested for an assault on a law officer (he avoided a jail sentence via a pretrial-diversion program, according to the Orlando Sentinel), and a few months later, a woman accused him of domestic violence. In the 15 months prior to George Zimmerman murdering Trayvon Martin, he called the Sanford police department 46 times, reporting on everything from open garage doors, to suspicious people (were all of the suspicious people African-American men?) wandering around the neighborhood. When Zimmerman saw Trayvon in his hoodie (news reports stated it rained that night), he decided to follow this suspicious person, even though the police officer on the 911 call advised him not to do that, and just wait for the police. Zimmerman ignored the officer, followed Trayvon, and then murdered him.
I’m sure Trayvon Martin had no idea that his short, promising life, would have the impact of such a powerful cause celebre’. Citing a story in the Kansas City Star, “Slimm” (as Trayvon was affectionately known) had just turned seventeen on 5 February 2012. Trayvon smiled like a young Denzel and he stood 6’3”. Trayvon worked hard in school. Trayvon played football. Trayvon had no criminal record. Trayvon had a girlfriend. Trayvon loved watching re-runs of Martin on TV One. Trayvon loved his Levi jeans, his Addidas, his Hip Hop and Gospel, and his Issey Miyake smell-good; all of which he got on his birthday.
A birthday which would be a few weeks before Travyon Martin’s funeral.
Trayvon’s mother Sybrina said he was a child full of love. Trayvon’s dad Tracy said that Trayvon was his hero; at nine-years-old, Trayvon pulled his father out of a burning house, went back inside the house to get the phone, and came outside and called for help. And now…their sun is gone.
A few weeks ago, Richard Zimmerman wrote a letter to a newspaper, in an effort to refute the idea that his minority Latino son George Zimmerman, was an American racist. I wonder if Richard Zimmerman exercised that same passion to contact Trayvon’s parents, with a heartfelt apology and plea for forgiveness. I hope so; Richard Zimmerman’s son destroyed their lives, and the lives of the Zimmerman family, too. George Zimmerman has the spellbound gaze of a votary enthralled in the necromantic swoon of revenants from Dixie Land Past; a graveyard of spectral farmers, whose produce is the blood-stained, strange fruit of African-American corpses. George Zimmerman’s seemingly overzealous racial phobia (along with the disturbing procedural methodology of the police in Sanford. Fla.), has painted a portrait of a frightened and delusional man who murdered a brave teenage dreamer.
Trayvon Martin is free. No longer will his cries for help—a gut-wrenching scream that hurdled over the Twin Lakes compound and bored deep inside the critical mass of our collective souls—go unanswered, because Trayvon is not crying anymore. Trayvon is flying. Of course, Trayvon left us too soon. Of course, Trayvon’s departure was tragic. Of course, his parents—two of the classiest, most humble, and strongest human beings I have ever seen in the media—miss him, and love him dearly. We all miss Trayvon, because he was one of U.S. Trayvon was my son, and no matter who you are, or where you come from, Trayvon was your son, too. But Trayvon is now and forever navigating with the The Master Pilot. GOD Rest Trayvon’s soul, as he glides above the sparks, the hate, the fear, the trouble, above the valley of the shadow of death. Trayvon Benjamin Martin flies far above shadow of the hood; those white hoods branded with a triple “K” logo, illumined by the burning flames of a cross America continues to bear.
*Postscript-13 July 2013: George Zimmerman was found Not Guilty by a jury at the Seminole County Courthouse.
*Postscript #2-25 July 2013: Juror “B29" was the only juror who believed George Zimmerman was guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin, but because of the evidence presented at the trial, and Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, she had no other choice but to vote for Zimmerman’s acquittal.
“George Zimmerman got away with murder,” the juror known as Maddy, told Robin Roberts in an 25 July 2013 ABC News/”Nightline” interview, “but you can’t get away from God. And at the end of the day, he’s going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with. But the law couldn’t prove it.”
