Emmett Till vs.Trayvon Martin

Today racism is still a part of everyday life.  On the night of February 26, 2012 the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place, in Sanford, Florida, United States. Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student.  George Zimmerman, a 28 year old mixed race of Hispanic was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the gated community where Martin was temporarily staying. Trayvon was walking home from a convenient store down the street when   Zimmerman called and said that he looked suspicious. Zimmerman continuously followed Martin even after being instructed not to the local police department.  Later Zimmerman stated that Martin had looked suspicious because he was wearing a hood and looked like he was carrying a gun. This was far from true. Martin was carrying skittles and tea that he had just bought at the convenient store.  Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder claiming self-defense.  The "not guilty" verdict acquitting George Zimmerman from criminal charges in the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin is scary for a number of reasons. Most of all because it reminds us that a racial time we hoped was over, is not. In the Zimmerman case we have a strange historical link to the infamous trial of the two men who in 1955 murdered 14 year old Emmett Till. We are a far from the nastiness of the Emmett Till trial. The jury in the Zimmerman case took 16 hours over the course of two days to reach its verdict, and today, the Justice Department has the authority to act if it can be shown that a civil rights violation took place in the killing of Trayvon Martin. What we can't get away from, is how the sequence of events that led to Till's and Martin's deaths began with the two teenage boys failing to accept their "assigned" social place without realizing what a threat that posed. After that line was crossed, everything else followed. This is why racism is still a big problem today.