When the foreman said the words "Not Guilty," I thought to myself, Not guilty on 2nd Degree Murder... this was expected. Go on... I was eager to see how the court would handle cuffing Zimmerman and taking him off to jail.
Continue reading! I waited impatiently. But no. That was it. There wasn't going to be a count by count reading, ending with "on the charge of manslaughter, we find George Zimmerman Guilty..."
Zimmerman had been acquitted. It took a minute or so for it to sink in. I truly was stunned. I think the talking heads were stunned too. Moments later, the social mediasphere blew up and my phone began to ring. But I wasn't up for talking or tweeting or posting bitter messages on Facebook. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I just sat in my room and cried. It took me 3 hours before I felt like I'd be able to handle a conversation, and even then, I didn't want to talk about what had just happened.
As I watched TV, I was a little comforted when I realized that I was not alone in my surprisingly emotional reaction. A lot of people were crying. Some of my favorite pundits on MSNBC were fighting back tears. They, like me, were devastated by the verdict, and by the notion that our children could get shot and killed with absolutely no recourse, not just by the police, but now by wannabe cops roaming the neighborhood.
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Needless to say, the mood has been really somber around here since the verdict was read last night. This morning I went to the grocery store and I'm not kidding you... everyone was quiet... looking very sad. I saw a lot of puffy eyes, and a lot of people had on shades. I didn't hear the lighthearted conversations and meaningless chatter that I usually do when I'm out and about.
Still, getting out the house helped a lot. I started attempting to look at the "bright side" of things. I told myself that my parents' generation went through a LOT more collective upsets than my generation has. I said things to myself like, "Well, the fact that we even entertained the possibility of a guilty verdict signifies that things have changed, even if not that much." Leading up to the verdict, I wasn't that optimistic, but I reminded myself that Florida did vote for President Obama; and, even though the jurors were in a conservative district, maybe the women on the jury would be able to put themselves in Sybrina Fulton's shoes. Just maybe. Clearly, that was not the case...
When I got home, I called my parents. I expected that, like me, they were saddened by the verdict, but I figured they would be "back to normal" by the time I called. But they weren't. My dad was so upset that he skipped church. My mom is an immigrant from South America who obtained her citizenship 15 years ago, but she was just as devastated as my dad. I'm not sure why I thought they'd handle the news better than I did.