I have been hesitant to enter the Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman fray.
In my opinion, it’s just too emotionally charged to get into it online.
Sunday morning, I woke up before anyone else in my family and as is my custom, I checked my email, and did a few other things.
Then I checked Facebook.
This was my newsfeed:
Person #1’s Status: You’re not paying attention if you believe Zimmerman was innocent.
Person #2’s Status: You’re not paying attention if you believe Zimmerman was guilty.
Person #3’s Status: You can’t really love Jesus if you believe Zimmerman was innocent.
Person #4’s Status: You can’t really love Jesus if you believe
That literally happened in almost straight succession.
Now, I’m not interested in debating the merits of the case with you or anyone else online. In truth, the list of people that I would discuss it with in real life is probably short.
Unless you want to talk about what we can learn about us from this death, trial, verdict and reaction.
Not about George Zimmerman.
Not about Trayvon Martin.
I’m not interested in discussing the judicial system, or anything else about the logistics of the case.
I want to talk about what we can learn about you and me.
I want to talk about our response to this event.
Both sides are drastically concerned with one thing. What they perceive to be justice.
People on both sides have used totally inaccurate arguments. They have both stated things as facts that they were proven to not be facts.
For many people, emotions have run extremely high.
People have made cries and accusations about everything.
This angers the people on the other side.
Why?
Because both sides believe they have justice on their side.
I think our desire, our passion to see justice happen is a good thing.
The problem, I think in this case is that it is blinding each side to seeing the view of the people on the other side.
We want justice so badly that we have failed to stop and hear the opinions of those who disagree with us. We’ve failed to stop and ask how someone in another reality from us might see this case.
We want justice so badly that we fail to make sure we act justly to people who have done nothing wrong, besides disagree with us.
I am afraid that until this changes there will alway be another Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman case. The names will be different. Perhaps, it will be different races.
But it will happen again, because I am afraid we have become a non-empathy society.
In a society where have nearly been enslaved to political correctness, which attempts to force empathy, we’ve lost our way. As long as we fail to embrace our alikeness, and differences while admitting our yearning for justice in a world full of injustice, we will never actually heal.
We will always be enslaved to our worst of emotions because it will be more about stopping the pain than true justice.
Stopping the pain is never about true justice. When we just want to stop the pain, we don’t really care if we have to stretch a few truths, or tell a few lies to get our point across. We believe we can bend a few of our own morals in order to achieve the greater good.
Of course, then we’re the ones perpetrating injustice.
May God have mercy on us all.