Fear of the Other

President Obama startled the unsuspecting White House press corps, and much of the country, with his unscripted remarks about race on Friday. Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, the President may have been feeling the pressure from the civil rights community to say something, and he delivered. But he made it clear that it really wasn’t about the verdict in the case. It was about profiling, saying that Trayvon Martin could easily have been he 35 years earlier.

That tragic incident in Florida was not about the state’s Stand Your Ground law. It was about much broader and deeper issues, starting with America’s love affair with guns, but even that’s too narrow a focus. It’s about the primal human fear of The Other.

I heard an NPR commentator – a white woman – say this morning that while she prided herself on her progressive views and her support of racial equality, the city she lives in, Washington D.C., is predominantly African-American, and that she was surprised to discover some lingering racial attitudes in her own heart.

As most of us know, prejudice is pre-judging – coming to a conclusion before all the facts are in. We do this all the time, about many things besides race, perhaps most often to ourselves. We say things like, “I’m no good at math,” and we do everything we can to avoid working with numbers, perhaps because of bad experiences with them in school. But then the day comes when our accountant is vacationing in Maui, and we have financial decisions to make on a deadline. We have to sit down at the kitchen table and figure it out. And we discover we’re not as bad at math as we thought. Numbers don’t scare us anymore, because we had no choice but to work with them.

What exactly does the expression, “Some of my best friends are Jews” mean, as an example? It doesn’t mean, “I like you in spite of the fact that you’re a Jew.” It means, “You’re my friend first, and your Jewishness is secondary” – or perhaps not an issue at all. What happens when people of different races fall in love and get married -- once a crime in many states? It means they love each other as complete human beings. It's why Mr. Obama is on this planet.

As an aside, I’ve often said that the quickest way to learn a foreign language is to fall in love with someone who doesn’t speak yours. Trust me, it leaves Rosetta Stone in the dust.

The trouble with prejudice is that there’s security in it. Everything and everybody are in their assigned places, fulfilling the roles expected of them. It’s all “sorted,” as the British like to say, so we don’t have to think about it. It goes even beyond the fear of The Other. It’s the fear of Chaos.

Some of us have a deeply ingrained resistance to having our world rocked. But the days of that kind of stability are over. Our world is being rocked almost daily now, and our preconceived notions are falling like dominoes in all kinds of fields. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Is the time coming when we will actually welcome such changes instead of fighting them?  And celebrate differences instead of fearing them?

I should live so long.

Hardly a Surprise

I had a strong feeling that George Zimmerman was going to walk, though I was reluctant to voice it ahead of time.

Was justice done for him and Trayvon Martin? Justice is one of those lovely abstractions we like to hang things on, but when reduced to the human level, justice is a very subjective thing. By itself, our court system doesn’t represent justice. It’s just the vehicle that’s supposed to get us there. The last stage in the process is the trial. As with any adversary situation, much like a sporting event, the better team wins. A clear majority of the legal talking heads on cable TV seemed to conclude that the defense did a much better job of presenting its case than the prosecution did.

Much of the trial was televised as per Florida law, raising the perennial issue of whether cameras in the courtroom are harmful. This may go against the grain, but I have persistently believed that if a single seat in a courtroom is open to a member of the general public, by extension, the rest of us should be able to see the same proceeding, with adequate protections, of course, for the jurors.

While the usual concerns about media hype and the folks in court playing to the cameras are raised, I submit that it’s beneficial for the public to know exactly how our courts work and how our laws are applied. There are cameras on almost every street corner, and while we may not all like the idea, we’re used to them by now. If there were cameras in every courtroom in procedures that are open to the public, we would eventually get used to that concept, and be better educated as well. There would be fewer “trials of the century,” because they’d all be on TV.

To return to the point, though, was justice done in Florida? One Facebook friend commented on a post of mine last night, telling us all to relax, it’s Florida, as if real justice isn’t expected there. If we expect all trials to produce justice, are we expecting too much?

I won’t dodge your lingering question. As I’ve said before, I think this country would be a considerably safer place if we didn’t have Neighborhood Watchers walking around with guns.