I’ll be honest. I have wanted to hide stories about Trayvon Martin from my Facebook newsfeed. I glance at a single headline that alludes to the cause of death, his skin color, and do not want to read further. My kids often look over my shoulder as I peruse Facebook. How can I tell this little man of mine about what happened to this little man of another mother?
I can’t.
At least that is what I have been telling myself each time I consider clicking the hide button. The real truth is this: I can barely stand to consider that in our world, the one in which I am raising my children, a little boy who looks like my little boy could be shot down solely because his killer found the color of his skin enough reason to consider him “suspicious.”
How did we get here? In two-thousand-twelve?
And how does a white mother tell a story like this to her black-skinned son, with his tightly curled hair cut close in the same style as Trayvon and his big, beautiful smile to match?
I can’t hide those stories. I am going to have to tell him about it. Somewhere in that horrible conversation that will still hold nowhere near the amount of pain as the one somebody had to have with Trayvon’s family, I will have to explain to him what it means to be a black boy in 2012.
Two-thousand-twelve.
And when he asks, I will have to reveal to him that, no, actually, the killer is not currently in jail. While Trayvon’s family suffers in the hellish prison of their loss, his killer runs free—presumably, according to the local sheriff, because he was college-educated and even took a course in criminal justice.
Please consider signing this petition to have Trayvon’s killer arrested.
This was originally posted March 22, 2012.
