We all watched, our eyes glued to the TV screen, as George Zimmerman faced his final verdict. We were naive, hopeful and confident in the federal court system, surely this man would not––could not get away with murder. So when the judge announced that he was not guilty and that this killer was free to roam the streets of Florida, we collectively gasped.
In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been surprised, it was merely another time that the United States judicial system has let us down.We soon learned that we would grow accustomed to this feeling in the months and years to come. But in that moment, the devastation was in the air and hopelessness was evident in every person’s eyes, especially African-Americans.
I see young Trayvon Martin in my cousin who implores for a pack of Skittles at the gas station; knowing that he could be murdered without any consequences makes my heart stop. Knowing that his killer could walk free the very next year takes gives me chills. Murder is an act of passion, an act that brews from deep violence. I’d like to believe that George Zimmerman regrets his actions. That every day he wakes up with the intense feeling of sorrow and that he recognizes that violence wasn’t the only option, that no one had to die that night. But I don’t think that is the case.
It is hard to comprehend what goes through a killer’s mind, not only as he is committing the crime but in the days, months, and years afterward. Unfortunately, reparations were the last thing on Zimmerman’s mind in the years after Martin passed away. Instead, he is much more interested in how he can make a profit off of the murder of yet another black body in America. When Zimmerman auctions off that prized gun of his, he is not only reopening a wound that has not yet healed, but he is making a profit off of this reopened wound.
$5,000 was the beginning bet, $5,000 was the price of the weapon that eagerly removed another soul from this Earth.Somewhere, a mother cries because she knows that the weapon that took her son away from her was sold for a couple grand.Even if Zimmerman’s listing was removed from the first auction site he tried, that won’t prevent him from trying again until he finds the one site that can’t turn down the green paper that controls our lives.
Perhaps this desperate attempt to sell this gun was an attempt to free himself of all ties to that fateful night when he couldn’t ignore that boy in his hoodie. Unfortunately for Zimmerman, those ties cannot be shaken that easily, it will take a lot more than auctioning off your murder weapon before we will forget.
