for a column titled Black boys denied the right to be young. Intended for the print edition of Tuesday's Washington Post, it went live in early afternoon on the website.
It begins with two short and to the point paragraphs:
Justice failed Trayvon Martin the night he was killed. We should be appalled and outraged, but perhaps not surprised, that it failed him again Saturday night, with a verdict setting his killer free.
Our society considers young black men to be dangerous, interchangeable, expendable, guilty until proven innocent. This is the conversation about race that we desperately need to have — but probably, as in the past, will try our best to avoid.
Trust me when I say that what you have just read is not close to the full power of this op ed.
It would be unfair of me to try to summarize the article - Robinson lays out his case thoroughly, precisely, and with evidence.
He reminds us of the history of the case, including the fact that Zimmerman was never tested for drugs or alcohol - and we have to wonder, what if in fact he had them in his system? Might that have changed anything.
He feels the case was more than met for a conviction on manslaughter, and offers the reasons why. And then comes two more to the point brief paragraphs:
Those jurors also knew that Martin, at the time of his death, was just three weeks past his 17th birthday. But black boys in this country are not allowed to be children. They are assumed to be men, and to be full of menace.
I don’t know if the jury, which included no African Americans, consciously or unconsciously bought into this racist way of thinking — there’s really no other word. But it hardly matters, because police and prosecutors initially did.
Please keep reading.
I have been waiting for the reactions of Eugene Robinson and Charles M. Blow. The latter's column would normally next run on Thursday.
Robinson has the ability to put things in very plain terms, like how many murders by sidewalk do you know of? And yet, if I may, the assumed fear Zimmerman had cannot be sustained by the sidewalk, since the evidence is that most if not all of the struggle was some distance from the sidewalk. One wonders why the prosecution did not take apart the contradictions in the statements they did have from Zimmerman to take apart his claim for fear for his life - from a skinny 17-year-old whom he outweighed by more than 30 pounds.
If the jury, if society, accepts that Zimmerman had a "rational" fear, what does that say for our attitudes towards Blacks, specifically towards young black men?
It is that point that Robinson wants us to confront.
If I have not already convinced you of the power of this column, then perhaps the penultimate paragraph will:
The conversation we need to have is about how black men, even black boys, are denied the right to be young, to be vulnerable, to make mistakes. We need to talk about why, for example, black men are no more likely than white men to smoke marijuana but nearly four times as likely to be arrested for it — and condemned to a dead-end cycle of incarceration and unemployment. I call this racism. What do you call it?
You should only read the final brief paragraph in the context of the entire piece, so I will offer no more of Robinson's words.
This is ultimately about far more than the George Zimmermans of America.
It is about our entire society.
I don't really know where to start, except to say that until we can identify and name the problem, it becomes difficult to address.
Robinson names it.
It is racism.
It is our continual sin as a society.
And because of it, young black men are arrested for things whites are not, are incarcerated at much higher rates which are then used to justify profiling, as we have seen in New York City.
Too many are dying.
We have known this for many years, and I am reminded of this by Marvin Gaye telling us that too many were dying, and that song was back n 1971.
Go read the Robinson.