Canonizing Trayvon Martin
With Pope Francis scheduled to officially recognize former Popes John XXIII and John Paul II as canonized saints in the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, it's appropriate that we pay homage to an unofficial American saint-in-the-making, black martyr, Trayvon Benjamin Martin.
If eventually secularly sanctified, Martin's sainthood would be unique.
The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black man-child, by 29 year old, mixed-race neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the early evening of February 26th, 2012, was an avoidable national tragedy, but hardly grounds for Trayvon's sainthood in any sense.
It was avoidable because Martin failed to control his rage at being accosted and challenged and because of Zimmerman's overzealousness in performing his volunteer job of protecting his Sanford, Florida community.
It evolved into a national tragedy, in fact, a national travesty, when Zimmerman was pre-judged guilty and threatened with execution by radical civil rights agitators.
That unpunished, outrageous threat by the New Black Panther Party accompanied the mainstream media wildly sensationalizing and twisting the truth about the defendant and the incident and was further exacerbated by the president of the United States needlessly interjecting himself in a local affair, thereby intentionally or unintentionally helping ignite a national firestorm over race, prejudice, and the equity of "Stand Your Ground" laws.
When George Zimmerman was totally exonerated by a jury of his peers in July, 2013 and the FBI regretfully conceded it found no racial bias in the shooting, overly optimistic observers assumed, hoped, that the unfortunate spectacle was over and done with. We naively felt that Martin would and should forever be fondly remembered by his family and friends and that Zimmerman would and should be permitted to live out his life as an innocent, free man.
Of course, as often detailed in this space, none of those hopes came to fruition.
Following the not guilty verdict, black agitators like the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson reacted by ramping up their threats and racial hatred. Obama's MSM continued to publish pictures depicting Trayvon as an innocent 12 year old instead of the thuggish, menacing 17 year old he had become. Martin's memory was cynically transformed into a black cause of dubious merit. And Zimmerman was forced to go into hiding to preserve his life.
Compounding those belated miscarriages of justice at the same time they demeaned the life and death of Trayvon Martin by distorting reality, a new effort has been launched aimed at virtually canonizing him as a civil rights saint of some sort.
Now, there are saints and then there are saints. However, few rational people would regard a druggie gang banger with a short temper and a penchant for fighting in addition to a history of school suspensions who was once found in possession of burglary tools and stolen property as saintly.
It was disturbing enough that so many Trayvon supporters took advantage of his death by skipping school to demonstrate on his behalf and that so many others cashed in by peddling such memorabilia as double-lined Trayvon hoodies with matching drawstring for a mere $29.98, sold only in black.
But, when his supposedly very religious mother, Sybrina (Sabrina) Fulton, sought to trademark virtually everything associated with her dead son's name only a month after his death, suspicions arose that more exploitation was in the offing.
Those suspicions were confirmed by efforts to pass a federal "Trayvon's Law" in his honor and by Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, announcing his quest to get hold of, (to enshrine?) the actual hoodie Martin wore the night he died, "Because it's such a symbol, it would allow you to talk about race in the age of Obama."
"The age of Obama?" And, Americans have been talking about race ever since Barack Hussein Obama made it an issue in our country!
Trayvon Martin should have as much chance of achieving sainthood as Emmett Till, the 14 year old black boy murdered in 1955 in Mississippi, to whom Trayvon has been compared. Till had allegedly grabbed a married, white woman's hand and waist, asked for a date, and suggestively said, "You needn't be afraid of me, baby, I've been with white women before" and, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it?"
Then, again, given the bizarre, still-thriving and profitable Travonmania in America and the president's propensity to stir up racial strife, it's entirely possible we may soon see the enaction of the "Emmett-Trayvon Law" followed by a more concerted push toward sanctification of both.
Hey! Stranger things have happened in America, notably Obama's two elections!
(See graphic, including previously suppressed, photos of Martin and Zimmerman here [http://tinyurl.com/k9blrzo].)
If eventually secularly sanctified, Martin's sainthood would be unique.
The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black man-child, by 29 year old, mixed-race neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the early evening of February 26th, 2012, was an avoidable national tragedy, but hardly grounds for Trayvon's sainthood in any sense.
It was avoidable because Martin failed to control his rage at being accosted and challenged and because of Zimmerman's overzealousness in performing his volunteer job of protecting his Sanford, Florida community.
It evolved into a national tragedy, in fact, a national travesty, when Zimmerman was pre-judged guilty and threatened with execution by radical civil rights agitators.
That unpunished, outrageous threat by the New Black Panther Party accompanied the mainstream media wildly sensationalizing and twisting the truth about the defendant and the incident and was further exacerbated by the president of the United States needlessly interjecting himself in a local affair, thereby intentionally or unintentionally helping ignite a national firestorm over race, prejudice, and the equity of "Stand Your Ground" laws.
When George Zimmerman was totally exonerated by a jury of his peers in July, 2013 and the FBI regretfully conceded it found no racial bias in the shooting, overly optimistic observers assumed, hoped, that the unfortunate spectacle was over and done with. We naively felt that Martin would and should forever be fondly remembered by his family and friends and that Zimmerman would and should be permitted to live out his life as an innocent, free man.
Of course, as often detailed in this space, none of those hopes came to fruition.
Following the not guilty verdict, black agitators like the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson reacted by ramping up their threats and racial hatred. Obama's MSM continued to publish pictures depicting Trayvon as an innocent 12 year old instead of the thuggish, menacing 17 year old he had become. Martin's memory was cynically transformed into a black cause of dubious merit. And Zimmerman was forced to go into hiding to preserve his life.
Compounding those belated miscarriages of justice at the same time they demeaned the life and death of Trayvon Martin by distorting reality, a new effort has been launched aimed at virtually canonizing him as a civil rights saint of some sort.
Now, there are saints and then there are saints. However, few rational people would regard a druggie gang banger with a short temper and a penchant for fighting in addition to a history of school suspensions who was once found in possession of burglary tools and stolen property as saintly.
It was disturbing enough that so many Trayvon supporters took advantage of his death by skipping school to demonstrate on his behalf and that so many others cashed in by peddling such memorabilia as double-lined Trayvon hoodies with matching drawstring for a mere $29.98, sold only in black.
But, when his supposedly very religious mother, Sybrina (Sabrina) Fulton, sought to trademark virtually everything associated with her dead son's name only a month after his death, suspicions arose that more exploitation was in the offing.
Those suspicions were confirmed by efforts to pass a federal "Trayvon's Law" in his honor and by Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, announcing his quest to get hold of, (to enshrine?) the actual hoodie Martin wore the night he died, "Because it's such a symbol, it would allow you to talk about race in the age of Obama."
"The age of Obama?" And, Americans have been talking about race ever since Barack Hussein Obama made it an issue in our country!
Trayvon Martin should have as much chance of achieving sainthood as Emmett Till, the 14 year old black boy murdered in 1955 in Mississippi, to whom Trayvon has been compared. Till had allegedly grabbed a married, white woman's hand and waist, asked for a date, and suggestively said, "You needn't be afraid of me, baby, I've been with white women before" and, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it?"
Then, again, given the bizarre, still-thriving and profitable Travonmania in America and the president's propensity to stir up racial strife, it's entirely possible we may soon see the enaction of the "Emmett-Trayvon Law" followed by a more concerted push toward sanctification of both.
Hey! Stranger things have happened in America, notably Obama's two elections!
(See graphic, including previously suppressed, photos of Martin and Zimmerman here [http://tinyurl.com/k9blrzo].)
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