KENDRA N. BRYANT

31. BUT CAN WE MUSTER COMPASSION FOR GEORGE ZIMMERMAN?

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honour us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! –Claude McKay, 1919

The oppressed people of the world must not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives. Martin L. King, Jr., 1958 When the unjust murder Trayvon Martin made national news, many in the Black community echoed the sentiments that Claude McKay expresses in his 1919 poem, “If We Must Die.” African American influences like Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), issued a $10,000 bounty for the “dead or alive” capture of Hispanic, white-identified George Zimmerman, who tracked and killed Martin. Shabazz said Zimmerman will “always be hunted and hated like the villain that he is and the demon that he is to many” (Campbell, 2013, p. 2). Shabazz and the NBPP claimed, via Twitter, “Were at war. Its (sic) silly and immoral to call for peace when war has been declared” [author’s parenthetical inclusion] (Campbell, 2013, p 3). The NBPP’s idea of waging a war with Zimmerman and/or white America has infiltrated some members of the Black community—as evidenced in water cooler banter, social network discourses, and Million Hoodie Marches where Zimmerman

K.J. Fasching-Varner et al. (Eds.), Trayvon Martin, Race, and American Justice, 197–201. © 2014 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. K.N. BRYANT has been the center of Black rage. Preachers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Jamal Bryant have made concerted efforts to encourage all people, especially Black people, to maintain integrity and peace throughout the Martin case. After Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict, Zimmerman averaged 400 death threats per minute on social media sites. According to his brother Robert, the family has since been living in constant fear (news.com.au, 2013). In the light of this 21st century where Black males are lynched by blue suits versus white sheets, preachers are center stage of reality television versus civil rights movements, and the government is more vested in funding wars versus housing the homeless, feeding the hungry and employing the impoverished, many Black Americans like Shabazz are—as Fannie Lou Hammer so adamantly expressed— “sick an’ tired of being sick an’ tired (Campbell, 2013, p. 3).” As a result of their dis-ease, while many of America’s Black citizenry have not advocated for war, many have consciously and unconsciously cloaked themselves in a hatred that only begets hate. However, pulling us so low as to hating George Zimmerman—even if it is an expression of our love for Martin, his parents, and other Black males lynched—is depersonalizing and soul defying. Although Black Americans may feel entitled to “meet the common foe / and for their thousand blows deal one deathblow (Campbell, 2013, p 2),” such reactionary behaviors—even when merely thought about—reinforce the inhumanity that continues to divide, dis-ease, and devastate our nation. While the “New” Black Panther Party is stuck in what Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) called “romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates about freedom” (p. 249), many Black Americans are stuck in feelings of disempowerment, rage, and inferiority, and they are in danger of being the cause of their own dispiriting. So, where do we go from here? It is a question that King posed in his last address as the Southern Christian Leadership Council president in 1968; it is a question that is relevant 50 years later, since George Zimmerman’s acquittal. If America, particularly her Black citizenry, hopes to remain humane under current inhumane situations—while memorializing Martin, who was killed as a result of another human being’s fears, tensions, and violence—then as King (1958) suggested throughout his tenure as a preacher and civil rights activist, “We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love” (p. 17). We must muster compassion for Zimmerman. And yes, the very idea of extending kindness, empathy, and consideration to Zimmerman, who, like the unnamed antagonist in McKay’s poem, hunted and penned Martin as though he were a hog seems hellacious. The love that we must muster for Zimmerman is a compassion that will maintain our own humanity so that peace on earth is always possible. This love is neither aesthetic nor personal, but it is an active love that is willing to forgive the oppressor in order to restore the community. This love we must muster for George Zimmerman is what the Greeks call agape. King’s (1957) nonviolent movement—which he claimed “is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country” (p. 249)—

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