The Trayvon Martin trial has been perhaps the most controversial court case since the OJ Simpson trial, generating heated debate on issues of gun control, racial profiling, and violence. George Zimmerman, the shooter in the deadly encounter February of 2012, was found not guilty for murder in the second degree of Trayvon Martin. The decision was immensely controversial, leading to online debates and protests.

Some claim that the issue didn’t deserve the recognition it got and that other black youth and even white youth don’t receive national attention for their deaths. While it is true that events similar in kind happen around the US, the Zimmerman trial only received national attention after the Sanford Police Department announced it would file 0 charges or an investigation, an unprecedented call following a murder involving a youth. In all other instances, an arrest is made. For example, an image macro circulated around twitter accounts of those who fail to understand the implications of white privilege of a young white youth who was murdered by a black male with the caption “what’s the difference?” The difference is that in that case alone there were 4 arrests made, a difference that is literally not quantifiable (as any multiple of 0 is still 0) in comparison to the Trayvon shooting. Other (predominantly white) folks bring follow up with statistics of violence in South Side Chicago (very humorously referred to as ‘some parts of Chicago’) and suggest that this case in media is often ignored. While it is true that black on black violence is an uncovered issue in American media, the perpetuators of this silence is not just the media but the people preaching the case. Anyone who is legitimately surprised by these statistics in the sense that they have never heard them before is someone who has clearly never given a modicum of interest into the issue of race relations into the United States. Additionally, while black on black violence is a problem, it is one in which bodies are jailed arbitrarily and also does not gloss over the particular injustice done against Trayvon.

The acquittal was predicated in the argument that Zimmerman was defending himself against Trayvon’s aggression. Self-defense is an unusual legal term in this context. Traditionally, it implies the victim protecting themselves. It is a tad bit unusual to suggest that Zimmerman acted in self-defense when he was driving in an SUV when he called 911. During that call, the 911 dispatcher told him strictly to disengage and not follow Trayvon, whom Zimmerman was only following on a hunch that ‘he looked suspicious’. Not only did he disregard those instructions, but transcripts show he actively pursued Trayvon when the boy attempted to flee. In order for the encounter to have occurred, Zimmerman must also have willingly left the safety of his vehicle to confront Trayvon. Additionally, Zimmerman was armed and carried the firearm with him out of the car. The common reason people consider Zimmerman’s actions self-defense was because he had several face injuries, but these don’t account for the fact that all other evidence points to him being the instigator of the event.

This creates an interesting problem in the ‘self-defense’ defense. On one hand, we find Trayvon guilty simply because Zimmerman has wounds on his head. On the other hand, we see a chain of events inherently antagonistic against Trayvon that would put him in a position to fear his own life. We also see that in order for Zimmerman to shoot Trayvon, he must have the gun on his person during the attack, in which he claims he was pinned down. Given these, how then do we decide what self-defense is? Who threw the first punch? Without any witnesses or evidence contrary to Zimmerman’s case, and the fact that it was the prosecutor’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman wasn’t acting out of self-defense, we have no choice but to default to his telling of things.

The major implication of this decision is that it sets the precedent for faux vigilantes to go around and start fights with innocent peoples, and then blow them away with a double-barrel when they fight back. Self-defense, in this sense, becomes a race. In a world where the instigator can equally be the victim, then whoever can kill the other first and live to tell their tale is acting in self-defense. This begs the question of the presumption of innocence. The contemporary legal paradigm of “innocent until proven guilty” is another faulty mechanism at play because there was little evidence available aside from his story. However, it makes little sense to hold a criminal to the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” when we know he in fact committed the murder (hence why he was found not guilty rather than innocent). Zimmerman should have the burden of proof to prove it was indeed self-defense, not the prosecution. The question is not whether he committed the crime or not, but whether or not his story is true, which is not something we should assume just because he was the only one to live to tell the tale when there is a dead minor on our hands.

The question is not the verdict itself; following the legal evidence presented, the decision makes sense insofar it is a good interpretation of the law. The law however, is not natural or neutral. Just because the law says it is right, does not mean it is at all ethical. What requires our critical analysis is the conditions that make this verdict a sound one and also the opinions around the case which consider it to be a just decision just because it was one the jury made. It is an unfortunate outcome in a tragic case that has been plagued by the media and populace, perhaps even most tainted by those who toss it aside because it has been plagued by the media. In a world where racial violence has adopted the label of colorblind, the question of justice is always deferred. Some who only followed the case so far as it was a sensationalized media phenomenon, the latest in the ‘chic activism’, where socially conscious is replaced with social media consciousness, scoff at dissenting slogans such as “No Justice, No Peace”. Maybe from the safe windowpane of homes not cast in the shadow of race relations, it is easy to take comfort knowing this will soon fade from public eye. But for those who don’t share that privilege, when there is never justice, they cannot simply be at peace in the passage of time, because for them, Trayvon could happen any day.