The Sujewa Blog: Florida's George Zimmerman and the danger of ...

First of all, having only the information available in the media (the 6 or so police recordings made public thus far, over 20 articles that I've read about this horrible incident) it looks to me like that Sanford, Florida's 28 year old George Zimmerman pursued, shot, & killed a 17 year old teenager - Trayvon Martin - without a good reason for doing so.? Going to 7-11 to get some candy and a can of soda, the activity Martin was engaged in that night, is not a good reason for getting killed.? And Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, has not been arrested yet.? The murder took place over 2 weeks ago.? The killer - Zimmerman - is friendly with the town's ineffective & corrupt (from what I can see) police force.? A whole messed up basket full of rotten ideas - everything from Florida's very-unwise seeming gun laws, to what is described by some media as Zimmerman's unhealthy obsession with crime & young "Black" men, to American racism appears to have contributed to this tragedy.? For more details, read this and other major news coverage of the tragic incident, and the still unfolding frustrating aftermath.? And if Zimmerman is actually as guilty of murder as he appears to be, hopefully his life too will be taken - legally this time, by the state.? That would be fair.

So how does a person like Zimmerman - someone who is interested in keeping his neighborhood safe, as demonstrated by his neighborhood watch activities, become a killer of an unarmed teenager?? Unknown at this point.? We are still waiting for the Sanford police department to wake up and arrest the murderer, so that there may be a trial & so that we can fully discover what may have happened on that tragic night, and everything relevant leading up to that night.? In the meantime, I'll share an old quote that popped into my mind while reading about this incident:

?"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."?
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
German philosopher (1844 - 1900)

In Zimmerman's case I believe it would be more accurate to change the quote to read "he who BELIEVES he is fighting monsters...".

Perhaps Zimmerman saw a monster, a threat, where there was none because he expected to see a threat, because of the ideas that he held in his head about what a criminal, a threat to the neighborhood, looked like may have fit Martin's appearance.? Perhaps this was due to Zimmerman believing in race theory that has been popular in America - that people who are identified as "Black" will behave in a certain way.? And in trying to fight this imaginary monster of his, Zimmerman became, it seems to me, the true monster, a killer of an innocent boy, an unarmed teenager who was out getting a snack in his neighborhood.? The negative ideas about crime and groups of people in America that Zimmerman may have gazed for a very long time into may have become a part of his soul, or at least a part of his deepest thoughts, triggering the evil and unfortunate set of actions that resulted in Martin's death.

An immensely tragic and final event for Martin, and a tragic event for America - one that shows that there is still much work to be done, many improvements and reforms needed, even in this most excellent of all countries.? Hopefully that work will begin quickly with the arrest & trial of the killer George Zimmerman.

- Sujewa

Source: http://sujewa.blogspot.com/2012/03/floridas-george-zimmerman-and-danger-of.html

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