Trayvon Martin Killing Yields No Easy Answers

The tragic killing of Trayvon Martin has captured the nation's attention.  This week's story highlights the sidebar story of another Zimmerman family in Sanford, Florida being forced to leave their home because an "tweet" from Spike Lee led to threats against this family.  It is complicated and precipitous actions and statements can make matters worse.

Each of this week's Scriptures leads to soul searching about who we are, when we forget whose we are.  The passages from Proverbs and James speak to me.  God help us to resist being quick to react.  There is a difference between a tragedy of human doing and a disaster of nature, for example.  The latter requires quick thinking and response. 

However, the former can feel like a disaster when what we humans do to one another becomes a painful reminder of some injustice or unfairness or unresolved conflict.  God help us to know when to be patient and when to be quick.

Dave

The Wired Word for April 1, 2012

In the News

On the evening of February 28, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a tall high school football player from Krop Senior High School in Miami Gardens, Florida, with no criminal record, walked to a convenience store in the racially mixed Orlando suburb of Sanford, where he was staying with his father. He was in Sanford after being suspended from school for marijuana possession.

At the store, Martin purchased some Skittles and an ice tea, and started for the home of his father's fiancee, who lived in a gated community. He was unarmed.

En route, Martin, who was black, was noticed by George Zimmerman, 25, who was in his car on the way to a grocery store. Although affiliated with the Neighborhood Watch program, it is unclear if Zimmerman was "on duty" when these incidents occurred. He is of mixed white and Hispanic ethnicity.

Zimmerman said he thought Martin was acting strangely and could have been on drugs. He exited his vehicle and began following the teenager on foot. He was carrying a concealed Kel-Tec 9 mm automatic pistol, for which he was licensed, though Neighborhood Watch groups do not normally carry guns. At some point, Zimmerman phoned a 911 dispatcher, saying about Martin, "Something's wrong with him. Yep, he's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands." Zimmerman also uttered an indistinct exclamation that was recorded on the 911 tape.

Martin was on his cell phone with an unidentified female friend, who claims he told her that he was being followed by a strange man. She says that she urged him to run, and that he eventually did and was able to hide from his pursuer.

When Martin started to run, the dispatcher told Zimmerman he didn't need to follow him. Zimmerman reportedly then headed back for his SUV. He claims to have lost sight of the suspicious person, but says that as he was returning to his vehicle, Martin approached him from behind. According to Martin's cell-phone friend, Martin asked, "What are you following me for?" and Zimmerman replied "What are you doing here?" The cell-phone friend had nothing more to report but the sounds of a scuffle.

Zimmerman claims that Martin said, "You got a problem? Well, you do now!" and punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, where Martin then began beating him and hammering his head against the ground.  

There are no reported eyewitnesses to the initial punch, but an eyewitnesses reported hearing noise, and then seeing that Martin was on top of Zimmerman, beating him. According to the eyewitness, Zimmerman was shouting for help. The 911 tapes record someone shouting for help: Martin's father initially stated that it was not his son, but now says that it is; a friend of Zimmerman's claims it was Zimmerman. While the eyewitness was moving to another room in his home, he heard a shot, and then saw Martin on the ground. Zimmerman claims that he shot Martin in self-defense. Several other witnesses reported to police that they heard a scuffle, then a cry for help and then a gunshot. It's not clear whether the scream was from Zimmerman or Martin.

After the shot, Zimmerman waited for the police to arrive and gave his side of the story, re-enacting the encounter. Zimmerman had a bloody nose (later reports state that it had been broken; Zimmerman did not seek treatment until the following morning), an injury on the back of his head and grass stains on the back of his clothing.

The police took Zimmerman into custody for questioning and subsequently requested an arrest warrant from the Seminole County state attorney's office, categorizing the case as "homicide/negligent manslaughter." Based upon the evidence available, the state attorney's office determined that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Zimmerman, noting that the known physical evidence was consistent with his story. However, as is standard, the evidence will be placed before a grand jury for their determination if there is a possible case against him. As of midweek, no arrest warrant for Zimmerman has been issued.

The stand-your-ground portion of Florida's self-defense law states that there is no duty to retreat and affirms a person's right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force if that person is in a place where he or she has a right to be and the force is necessary to prevent "death, great bodily harm or the commission of a forcible felony."

At the time of the incident, Zimmerman was a student at Seminole State College in Sanford, where he and his wife live in a mixed-race semi-gated community (just under 50 percent non-Hispanic white) which had had a number of break-ins and other crimes recently. He and his wife were volunteer mentors for two local black children. He has since been expelled because the college claims it cannot guarantee his safety.

A few weeks later, various groups across the nation have claimed that this was a racial encounter, either driven by racism itself or by racial profiling, where Martin's "crime" was "walking while black." Some, following this line of thought, say that Zimmerman murdered Martin in cold blood. Amid the uproar, a federal investigation has been launched, as has one by Florida's attorney general; these are still in progress.

There has been talk of prosecuting Zimmerman using hate-crime legislation, based on an interpretation of the indistinct exclamation he made that was recorded on the 911 tape. Zimmerman says it was "f***ing goons"; others claim he said "f***ing coons." The latter is considered a racial epithet.

Several friends of Zimmerman dispute that he is a racist. The mother of the two African-American children Zimmerman mentored also maintains he is not a racist.

More on this story can be found at these links:
 
Trayvon Martin Case: Timeline of Events. ABC News
What Witnesses Say in the Trayvon Martin Case. CNN
Did Trayvon Martin Attack George Zimmerman First? Christian Science Monitor
Protests Over Trayvon Martin's Death Sweep Across America. Mail Online
A Collection of Public Documents in Trayvon Martin Shooting. CNN
 
The Big Questions

1. While some consider the Zimmerman-Martin encounter to be the result of racial profiling, others do not. What actual evidence causes you to decide whether or not this is a racially driven incident? What other motivations might account for it? If indeed Martin did attack Zimmerman first, what might account for his decision to do so?

2. How should church groups respond to this incident? Why? Consider two cases: (1) the Martins are nominal members of your congregation; (2) the Zimmermans are nominal members of your congregation. What is our responsibility as Christians to seek to know the truth of the incident before responding? Are there times it is better to speak out forcefully right away even if later revelations show that we didn't have the whole story? Why?

3. Regardless of what motivated this encounter, has justice been done? Can justice be done? Why or why not? Why should Christians be especially concerned about justice? What is "justice" in this case? Does the legal requirement to prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" serve to promote or to hinder justice? Justice for whom? Explain your answer and its rationale.

4. There has been talk about Trayvon Martin being America's "son." What about George Zimmerman? Is he American's "son" as well? What is our nation's obligation to each of them?

5. To what degree does your own ethnicity and cultural experience influence how you view the Martin shooting? Are you aware of any bias you need to put aside to understand how the incident is perceived by others? Can one's cultural or racial experience make one a better judge of the motivation behind certain actions? Can one's cultural or racial experience get in the way of correctly judging the motivation behind those actions?

 
Confronting the News with Scripture
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

1 Kings 3:22
"But the other woman said, 'No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours.' The first said, 'No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine.'" (For context, read 3:16-28.)

This verse is from the famous story in which King Solomon decides a dispute between two women about which of them is the mother of a baby by offering to split the baby between them by cutting it in half with a sword. For our purposes today, we note that the dispute is a classic she-said/she-said situation, where no one but the two women involved actually knew the truth behind their claims. Even Solomon's threat to split the baby in two didn't prove which one was the real mother; it only proved which one was the more compassionate toward the child, and thus the better one to have him. His action did see that a type of justice was done, however (see v. 28).

In the Zimmerman-Martin incident, we don't have even a disputed account, for Martin did not survive the encounter and no eyewitness saw its start.

Question: Since we have only Zimmerman's version of events, how can investigators decide what the truth of this incident is? How can we who are more distant from it decide? Is it even possible to know, objectively, the truth of what happened? Or are such truths always entangled in personal perspectives that distort them, even when we are trying to be objective?

Proverbs 18:13
"If one gives answer before hearing, it is folly and shame." (This is a stand-alone proverb; no context needed.)

One application of this proverb is this: Rendering an opinion on a topic without knowing the whole story is like answering a question before hearing it.

Questions: The Martin-Zimmermann situation could be understood as a series of situations in which participants, including those involved after the fact, "rushed to judgment." How might this proverb encourage cooler heads at each stage of this process?

Isaiah 59:15
"The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice." (For context, read 59:1-15.)

This is but one of many verses we could have chosen to show that God values justice in human society. The Hebrew term translated as justice in this verse actually means something like a "verdict" or "judgment," in the sense of a third party who decides a case between two others. The Hebrew word can also be translated as "righteousness," which is not equated with strict justice, for it includes mercy as well.

Question: Given these two definitions of the Old Testament word for justice, what would justice look like in the Zimmerman-Martin case?

Jeremiah 17:9
"The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse -- who can understand it?" (For context, read 17:5-13.)

Jeremiah is using "heart" metaphorically to mean our spiritual, emotional, moral and intellectual core, but he says that that core of our being is "devious" and "perverse."

Those are two interesting words. The underlying Hebrew word for "devious" derives from the same root as does the name "Jacob." Jacob was an occasionally devious character in the Old Testament who cheated his brother out of his birthright and deceived their elderly, blind father. "Perverse," according to the dictionary, means "directed away from what is right or good" and "obstinately persisting in an error or fault; wrongly self-willed or stubborn."

Question: Perversity suggests that we often fool even ourselves. What might be wrong with saying, "I'm not biased; my intentions were pure. I wasn't acting out of any subconscious motives"?

Matthew 23:25
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence." (For context, read 23:1-31.)

Jesus was especially vehement in his condemnation of hypocrisy among the scribes and Pharisees. But we wonder, did those people realize they were being hypocritical? Did they get up each day and decide, "I'll tell others what to do but I don't need to take my own advice because I'm already blameless?" Were they intentionally devious or had they just managed to not look at the truth about themselves?

Questions: How can we be aware of our own mixed motives? What can help us to know ourselves more clearly?

James 3:4-5
"Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!" (For context, read 3:1-12.)

James reminds us of the power of speech -- as well as how much damage it can do. If you read the entire context, you might decide you're better to never offer an opinion or tell others what you think they ought to do. But that doesn't work in the world as it is. There are many situations where we need to speak our mind and encourage others to join us in our view.

Question: Since there are times when we cannot avoid speaking our piece and perhaps even calling others to action, what precautions do we need to take so that we are not rushing to judgment? Be specific.

For Further Discussion

1. How might this encounter have gone differently if Zimmerman had not been armed? Would it have even happened at all? Might he have been "looking for trouble"? How much of your answers involve speculating on the thought processes of Zimmerman, based upon your own biases? Is it even possible to answer these questions without having a bias and speculating about someone else's motivations?

2. Are "stand your ground" laws (these state that a person has no duty to retreat when threatened with deadly force by another person) generally a good idea? What abuses might happen because of them? What benefits might they provide?

3. What kinds of experiences might lead some people to doubt the claim that racism was involved in Zimmerman's deciding that Martin was behaving suspiciously? What kinds of experiences might lead some people to believe that claim?

4. What is the difference between pontificating on this sad incident and raising a legitimate concern about it?

5. What one-sentence prayer would you add to the end of this lesson?

Responding to the News
 
This is a good time to remind ourselves that while media stories do not always get the facts right, it is often possible to ferret out a more accurate picture by gathering information from multiple sources, including some that have a different perspective from our own.

Closing Prayer
 
Guide us, O Lord, as we make judgments about the motives of others, that we do not launch trouble where none existed. In Jesus' name. Amen.
 

Copyright 2012 Communication Resources