Presumed Guilty

During the course of our first black presidency, when we were supposed to have taken huge strides in becoming post-racial, we have seen Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrested while suspected of breaking into his own home, witnessed the continuing stop and frisk policies of New York City being endorsed for its rationality by its mayor,  and recoiled as  a young Trayvon Martin was gunned down for the crime of being black.

Being the hunter rather than the hunted still attaches as closely as another layer of skin to being a black person in the United States. Presumed guilty follows each step of the way, whether one is highly esteemed like Mr. Gates or unknown like the hooded Mr. Martin.

We try to pretend that this is all illusion. But the reality is ugly and keeps reappearing whether one is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York City or Sanford, Florida. We act as if we are color blind, when in truth all we are is intentionally blind to the reality of what Mr.Zimmerman saw when he viewed Mr. Martin the last night of his far too short life.