DOES GEORGE ZIMMERMAN HAVE A LINE HE WOULDN'T CROSS? / A POEM BY BILL BERKOWITZ

It is supposed to be theoretical weekends at Scission.  Unfortunately there is nothing theoretical about yesterday's ending to the George Zimmerman trial which completed the "legal" lynching of Trayvon Martin.  I have not felt such a visceral  sense of sadness, anger, and outrage in a long, long time as when I heard the verdict of "not guilty."  Was I shocked that such a thing could transpire in this country?  Not really, but still I listened with a sense of disbelief which grew as I watched the smiling reaction of the "special prosecutor," as I heard her colleagues on the prosecution team thank the jury and actually comment that their prayers had been answered.  I had to turn off the television.  When I turned it back on, I found myself watching the loathsome defense team gloating and actually commenting that it had taken too long for justice to be found for George Zimmerman.  They and Zimmerman's brother added that if Zimmerman had been black there never would have been a trial.  I felt like I was living in some alternate universe.  

I lay awake last night knowing that I had to say something here, but the words to use failed me.  How could I express anything near what I was feeling?  I awoke this morning to an email from my old friend Bill Berkowitz and to a poem which he had written which took care of that for me.  I will share that with you now.

Does George Zimmerman Have a Line He Wouldn't Cross?

Does George Zimmerman have a line he wouldn't cross?

If he does, would it be a 15 year-old black boy

or girl?

Would it be a child of 13, 11, 9, 7, or 3?

Would the black child have to be taller than five feet ten inches?

What if that child was five feet eight inches or five feet three inches or barely five feet?

Would he still have attacked if it was a five feet two inch six year-old girl

carrying a soda and a bag of skittles?

Would his defense attorney still be so smug and disrespectful?

What if our five feet two inch girl walking home carrying a soda and a bag of skittles 

wore a hoodless sweatshirt?

Would Zimmerman have accosted her?

Would he have shot her dead?

Is another self-declared neighborhood-watch armed-vigilante

setting his sights on another black child?  

Bill Berkowitz, July 14, 2013