If the Zimmerman trial and verdict were a dream or, more aptly, a nightmare, I think the above would be a good title for it. I am a psychologist, and analyzing dreams is a big part of my work. So please indulge me, and let me analyze this dream dreamt by the American psyche.
Dreams often communicate deep truths with absurdity. Even after Zimmerman’s recorded call to the police during which he utters profanities under is breath, tips his hand about his motivation in following the hooded, skittle-wielding, black young man, and ignores directives to stop following him, he is presented to the jury as having innocently gotten out of his car to read the signs in his neighborhood. This is very dream-like, because it makes no sense. If he thought Trayvon Martin was threatening in some way, why would he get out of his car? He calls the police about Trayvon Martin's suspicious presence, clearly is invested in following Trayvon, and it is supposed to be believable that this action of getting out of the car is completely disconnected from these first actions? That he has developed a sudden curiosity in the neighborhood signs so compelling that he just had to get out of his car in close proximity to Trayvon Martin? The most common reaction to this seems to be--Seriously? We are supposed to swallow that explanation? And yet somehow the jury, perhaps we can view them as the dream ego, the part of the psyche whose job it is to be process and pay attention to reality, somehow the jury buys this absurdity.
And as we wake from this absurd dream of Zimmerman’s acquittal, do we dismiss the dream as having no meaning? The prosecution messed up. It happens. Juries are stupid. It happens. The dream came from random neural firings in the brain stem and had no meaning. Have a cup of tea and go back to sleep.
Or perhaps we can have that cup of tea, caffeinated, not herbal, hold off on going back to sleep, write this absurd, disturbing dream down, and try to understand what it means.
Reading the signs? And what do the signs say, American Dreamer? I have a few ideas about what the signs say.
There is a hidden sign in many neighborhoods for young black men. Best to heed the unofficial curfew on being out after dark. Violators who defend themselves will be seen as the aggressor. Violators may be shot on sight.
Another hidden sign--Young black men, if you are out after dark, you may need more than skittles to defend yourself. Chew on that message for a while, White America.
The right to bear arms, and the right to defend oneself with one, is such a sacred right in the American psyche, that the reality of an aggressive rather than defensive use can be completely obscured.
The most obvious message from this dream appears trite by its repetition, yet needs repeating because the counter-narrative gets repeated more and is so appealing. It needs to be acknowledged again and again that racism is alive and well in a myriad of forms in our collective psyche. The idea that we have made it to some sort of utopian, post-racial America is a dangerous one, an obvious attempt to make things look simple and neat and sweet by sweeping it under the rug.
More signs coming from this absurd dream will certainly be revealed in the next few days. The clarity and call for action coming from an absurd dream can fade quickly if one doesn't continue to reflect upon its meaning. Let’s try to resist the pull to go back to the sleep of complacency, denying what we already know and have recently re-discovered. Certain kinds of nightmares tend to repeat themselves until, if and when, the message sinks in and we are called to make changes.