In the black community in Canada and the US, when certain events happen to our brothers, our fathers, ourselves, we say "Oh ... DWB.", and shake our heads. It means, "Driving While Black".
It's a shorthand used to describe the times we are pulled over for driving in the "wrong" neighbourhood (affluent, mostly white neighbourhoods); for driving the "wrong" kind of car (expensive), or just for simply being around when a certain kind of cop is bored.
This doesn't mean of course, that all police are bad, racist or ignorant; but it does mean that enough of them are that a phrase like this became part of our shorthand.
George Zimmerman, a man who in the months prior to shooting Trayvon Martin had made over 90 calls to 911 to complain of "suspicious persons" in his neighbourhood (nearly all of whom were black); conversed with 911 operators on that night as well, and was recorded as saying as he left his vehicle to pursue Trayvon Martin:
"These assholes, they always get away."
...and less than 20 minutes later, Trayvon Martin - an unarmed, 17 year old boy, who went to the store in the rain to get his little brother a pack of skittles - was dead.
Trayvon Martin was
walking while black.
And so he joined other black children whose deaths caused a public outcry and calls for reform - from 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 to 14-year-old Martin Anderson in 2006.
The shooting of Trayvon has engendered a lot of conversation about race, racial profiling, the roll of media, gun control and hoodies - these and many other subjects which I will discuss in my art over the next little while - all of which have nothing (or very little) to do with the events that happened the night Trayvon Martin was killed by Mr. Zimmerman.
Initially, I viewed those conversations as a "Look over here!" tactic; but as I've been thinking (and thinking and thinking) I realized that his death has turned a spotlight on those issues - and we
do need to talk about them.
But as I (we?) talk about those issues, I don't want to lose sight of this boy: this-nearly-a-man who was not a perfect boy, but was perfectly loved; and who was guilty of nothing but WWB.
There has been a lot of talk about whether Mr. Zimmerman is white. But whether he was white or not doesn't matter.
What matters is that Trayvon Martin was killed, because he was black.
For those of you who are interested in the process behind the process, and why I chose to do what I did - I'll be offering an explication over the weekend. 'Till then...
Linking with
TGIFF at
Christine's blog.
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