We are outraged. Rightly so. No parent should have to bury their child for walking home with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of tea. Conservatives keep dancing around it. They won't face the racial aspects of the causes of violent death in the United States. This should be framed as a right to life issue. Trayvon Martin is more than a tragedy. This is wrong, plain and simple.
I'd like to see more cases like Trayvon's come to light. The phrase "1 death is tragic, but a 100 is a statistic" is no comfort to the families and friends of the rest of the kids who died of homicide. It may be true that only 3% of U.S. deaths are for young people from 0-24 years of age, but the death of one so young is jarring. It feels unnatural. It feels unnatural because most people live at least 70 years and Trayvon was robbed of his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In the U.S. Homicide is the cause of:
7% of deaths among children aged 1-14 years between 1997-2007
16% of deaths among children and young adults aged 15-24 years between 1997-2007
(see pages 37 - 38 of this big pdf)
If you are African American, your death rates are higher no matter what your age or cause of death. Homicide is the 4th cause of death for black men of all ages. Homicide is the 9th leading cause of death for Hispanic men and nowhere on the white man's list of top killers. Homicide is nowhere on the list of top killers of women. What happened to Trayvon points to the fallacy of stereotyping in that Trayvon was killed for simply walking down the road holding items in his hands. He wasn't breaking any law. He was stalked by an adult who decided Trayvon was "suspicious" and that he wasn't supposed to be where he had every right to be.
As a woman, I can attest to the threatening nature of being physically followed. It's intimidating, unnerving and can lead to bad results. Trayvon Martin's death is not simply a bad result. There is no mulligan, no do over. No, "My bad". The remedies available to Trayvon Martin's family are woefully inadequate as they have lost him forever.
The sad fact is that Trayvon is one of thousands of children who are victims of homicide. Homicide makes the top 15 of this listing of the causes of death for for all races in 2004. In this pdf (the numbers at the end of the descriptions are ICD-10, International Classification of Disease - 10 codes). This report shows just how deadly it can be for a teenager, because when a teen dies, it's highly likely to be a violent death. In fact, the top three killers of older teens in this report are accidents, assault or suicide.
I'll reprint some of it:
LCWK1. Deaths, percent of total deaths, and death rates for the 15 leading causes of death in 5-year age groups, by race and sex: United States, 2008
[Rates per 100,000 population in specified group. Rates are not shown for age groups over 85 years. Rates for "all ages" include deaths for age "Under 1 year." Figures for "age not stated" are included in "all ages" but are not distributed among age groups. Data for races other than white and black should be interpreted with caution because of inconsistencies between the reporting of race on death certificates and on censuses and surveys. New ICD-10 code J09 (Influenza due to identified avian influenza virus) was added to the category Influenza and pneumonia in 2007]
All races, both sexes, 15-19 years
...
All causes 12,407 100.0 57.7
1 Accidents (unintentional injuries) (V01-X59,Y85-Y86) 5,541 44.7 25.8
2 Assault (homicide) (*U01-*U02,X85-Y09,Y87.1) 2,095 16.9 9.7
3 Intentional self-harm (suicide) (*U03,X60-X84,Y87.0) 1,604 12.9 7.5
The stats are clear.
The U.S. kills their children more often than all but one other industrialized country.
The United States is second in the industrialized world for killing our children 1-19 years of age. (big pdf see pgs 36 & 78)
Data table for Figure 26. Death rates among children 1–19 years of age, by OECD country: 3-year average of most recent data, 2001–2006 Child Years mortality (average OECD Country rate annual)
Portugal ....................................... 34.60 2001–2003 UnitedStates.................................... 32.67 2003–2005 NewZealand.................................... 32.05 2002–2004 SlovakRepublic.................................. 30.15 2003–2005
Belgium........................................ 28.97 1995–1997
Poland ........................................ 28.13 2003–2005
Hungary ....................................... 25.75 2003–2005 CzechRepublic.................................. 24.92 2003–2005
Austria ........................................ 24.57 2004–2006
Australia....................................... 23.66 2001–2003
Finland........................................ 23.54 2004–2006
Spain ......................................... 23.49 2003–2005
Canada........................................ 23.43 2002–2004
Greece ........................................ 23.15 2004–2006
Denmark....................................... 22.93 1999–2001
RepublicofKorea ................................ 22.36 2004–2006 Ireland......................................... 21.97 2003–2005
Italy........................................... 21.76 2001–2003
Norway........................................ 21.49 2003–2005
Germany....................................... 21.23 2002–2004
UnitedKingdom.................................. 21.17 2003–2005
France ........................................ 21.04 2003–2005
Netherlands..................................... 20.49 2002–2004 Switzerland..................................... 20.33 2003–2005
Sweden........................................ 19.27 2002–2004
Japan......................................... 18.23 2004–2006
Iceland ........................................ 16.95 2003–2005
Luxembourg .................................... 14.84 2003–2005 NOTES:OECDisOrganisationforEconomicCo-operationandDevelopment.Childmortalityratesarethenumberofdeaths amongchildren1–19yearsofageper100,000children.DataforBelgiumandDenmarkwerethemostcurrentavailable. SOURCE:WorldHealthOrganizationmortalitydatabase2008.
We are reducing the death rates of our children due to unintentional injuries. We have effectively baby proofed and child proofed our homes and schools. We have stopped the senseless unintentional injuries to our children, but how do we protect our children from other people? We can't wrap them in cotton and confine them to being with us at all times. The intentional killing of our children is chilling. It's unthinkable for most parents, yet thousands of families deal with the unthinkable every year.
Homicide among our children is an awful statistic. A social worker once told me that the leading cause of homicide death of a 2-4 year old is wetting or soiling their pants at the "wrong" time. No, I'm not kidding. This really was the concern some years ago and it still is today. The high profile cases in the news aside, the causes of physical child assault largely surround parents punishing their children in anger. Children abused to death is a shameful statistic in the U.S. and in some ways I view what happened to Trayvon Martin as child abuse. He wasn't abused by his family, he was abused by someone in his neighborhood. He is being abused in death by the Sanford Police Department, the media and political hacks. (BTW, where the hell is Nancy Grace!?! Why isn't she on this? Her silence is deafening.) We'll never know what kind of man Trayvon Martin was going to be. We'll never know his future family because that path is gone.
Should a child survive their parents and most do, children then face a different danger. A danger from their peers, family, friends and finally the stranger and it was a stranger that killed Trayvon Martin. For a girl, her most likely cause of violent death comes from becoming (willingly or unwillingly) sexually active and/or pregnant (pdf). As horrific a crime done to Trayvon Martin, I'm mindful of the violence in our world and how too commonplace the murder of our children has become. The current trending stories of Trayvon's school issues and some of the accounts from Zimmerman don't really change the narrative. I don't care. Trayvon Martin died a senseless, violent death.
Trayvon, words are not enough to make up for what was done to you. You went to a school I often drive by. You lived in a neighborhood adjacent to mine. You look familiar to me. Just like any of a dozen kids that have come to visit my home and neighborhood. Who knows, I might have walked passed you at the grocery store or the mall. I never met you. Now, I never will.