Trying to Talk to a Friend

Notes from a thorny, thorny conversation about George Zimmerman and white women fearing black men.

Black girls and boys and men and women are the most vulnerable citizens in America, with black gay, lesbian, and transgender folk at the top of that list. If the Stand Your Ground defense was applied equally across races, they could be spraying bullets left and right in response to real or perceived threats all day long.

By what sleight of mental hand do those who get the mother-lode of bullshit, the most exiled, suspected, and hunted, with the most cumulative trauma—get recast as the most dangerous of people in the minds of strangers and the public?

And how do we unhinge those terrible associations?

One of the best things I've read about the underlying meaning of the Trayvon Martin killing.