Sunday mornings are my favorite. Except for this one. Watching the Trayvon verdict last night left me with a lot of mixed emotions. I had some lengthy conversations with some of the people I consider to be great minds in my life afterwards, but still wasn't able to completely resolve it internally.
On one hand, the fact that a young man was killed when he probably didn't need to be, is a travesty in itself. Like most, I think race had a great deal to do with the decision to follow and assault him. I think that if Trayvon looked like me, this case wouldn't be an issue at all.
On the other hand, we have a justice system that is set up to dictate a result "beyond a reasonable doubt". If I was ever on trial for something, I would want there to be a 100%-no-doubt decision about my guilt. If there was the slightest chance I was innocent (pending that I actually was), I would not want to be locked up. The same can be said here.
What I have the biggest issue with is that there was no guilt in the verdict. Obviously 1st degree murder would be to harsh, but I see no reason a grown ass man needed to kill a boy much smaller than him because he felt threatened. And obviously I'm no lawyer, but I have to imagine that there is a murder degree that would be applicable in this case. I hope the appropriate result will come out one day, but less than 12 hours after the decision, it still feels so up in the air...
Sidenotes:
- I have been consuming such a crazy amount of chicken these past few months. I feel like I'm single handily wiping out an entire generation of chickens.
- I forgot how good Sam Cooke is. One of his songs came on my shuffle a few days ago, and I've been trying to recreate his catalog on itunes. Such an amazing voice that we lost too early.
- I've really been dying to watch Stand By Me, The Sandlot and Do The Right Thing recently. Maybe it's because it's summer, but those are some awesome movies.
- I'm really having writers block when it comes to this new book. It's revolving around baseball, but it needs to be something better than just a love story...
- Candy Crush is running my life
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