Juror B37

Yet another post about Trayvon Martin. Add it to your collection. Amass the whole set.

Watching the L.A. riots, I was so sad I almost cried. I felt the same way watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It usually takes devastation on a pretty mass scale to move me even close to tears for people I don’t know. I wasn’t sad when I heard about the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I was angry. I wasn’t angry or sad when I heard about George Zimmerman’s acquittal; I was something more like… exhausted.

Knowing how flawed our judicial system is, I still try to have faith in it. I was never one of those people saying “Free Mumia!” I simply said, “Retry Mumia.” I was not convinced of his innocence, I was convinced he never got a fair trial and I feel that everyone deserves one. I never wanted George Zimmerman dead, I didn’t want his head on a platter, I didn’t want them to lock him up and throw away the key without due process of law. I simply wanted him to be charged with a crime and after 45 days and massive public outcry, he was.

I told myself I had to accept the jury’s decision no matter what, because that’s how the system worked. I could not convict George Zimmerman from my living room, because like everyone else on the planet other than Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, I wasn’t there I and didn’t see what happened.

I mean, I know what I read: that Trayvon Martin had none of George Zimmerman’s DNA under his fingernails, that there was none of George Zimmerman’s blood on the sleeves of Martin’s now famous hoodie. I know what I saw: pictures of George Zimmerman’s face and head before and after the EMTs cleaned the blood off of him which seemed to show that the blood was the result of superficial cuts to his skin. I know what I didn’t see, any photos of bruises on George Zimmerman. All of which seems to me to be inconsistent with the beating the Zimmerman allegedly took at the hands of Trayvon Martin.

I was in fight with my brother, he punched me once and I looked worse than this for days afterward. Alas, I did not have a gun.

But again, that’s me trying to litigate the case from my living room. And I didn’t even watch the trial on TV. So when the jury handed down its not guilty verdict, I tried to accept it. Not because I thought George Zimmerman was innocent, but because I assumed that the laws in Florida, the instructions to the jurors and the high burden of proof put on the prosecution, left the jury no choice.

Then, juror B37 went on Anderson Cooper and fucked up my whole day.

I don’t watch cable news as a rule, so when something on cable news makes its way to my consciousness, it’s a bad sign.

There’s fact that she disregarded the judge’s instructions to not consider some of Detective Chris Serino’s testimony, the fact that she cited the Stand Your Ground Laws, even though they weren’t used in Zimmerman’s defense, her descriptions of Rachel Jeantel which seemed to have everything to do with her own projections on to Jeantel personally and not on the substance of her testimony, her assertion that Trayvon Martin could have just “walked away,” when on the 911 tape Zimmerman says that Trayvon was running away and so he pursued him, her assertion that the possibility that Zimmerman had racially profiled Martin was never discussed…

It was after listening to quotes from this interview on NPR, that the weight of the tragedy finally hit me. For the first time since hearing about Trayvon Martin’s death, I was not angry, but sad. I felt like I had been reminded once again that my life has less value; that the lives of my nieces, nephews and cousins have less value. I was reminded that as black man, everything I do is suspect, even walking in down the street. If I stand up to an assailant, he may kill me because he fears for his life, but if I flee, he may chase me because the act of fleeing is deemed suspicions and “these guys always get away.” I was reminded that as a black man, I am always armed, even when I’m unarmed. I am reminded that no matter whom I’m up against; a man with a gun or four police officers with guns, nightsticks and Tasers, that as long as I’m black and they are not, they will always be overmatched because my skin color  is a weapon in and of itself.  

For the first time since the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I am more sad than angry; sad for myself, sad for Trayvon Martin and his family, sad for Jordan Davis and his family, sad for Darius Simmons and his family, and yes, sad for juror B37. I’m not angry at juror B37. She didn’t invent injustice even if she is an unwitting participant in it. She is a product of her culture just like I am a product of mine. She can no sooner imagine what it’s like to be me or Trayvon Martin, or Rachel Jeantel, than I can imagine what it’s like to be her.

God help us all.