On October 29, there was a hearing in Washington D.C. regarding the controversial law entitled ?Stand Your Ground.? Ted Cruz, the attention-seeking?Republican Senator from Texas, made a statement that is not only misleading, but downright offensive. Sitting right across from Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis? mothers,??Cruz said that Stand Your Ground Laws are beneficial to?African-Americans. Okay. Let’s dissect this. 
First, the background of these mothers is essential in knowing why these arguments are so offensive. We all are aware of Trayvon Martin’s story, and, even though Zimmerman’s attorneys didn’t argue a Stand Your Ground defense, that law was cited in Jury Instructions and some jurors have discussed using it to help reach their verdict. Jordan Davis was another 17- year -old African-American boy who was shot while sitting in a car and killed by an older white man. Davis was unarmed at the time, as was Martin, and was killed after an alleged dispute over loud music. Now back to that hearing. Cruz cited a Daily Caller story that mentioned how black defendants were more successful in Stand Your Ground cases that involved a homicide. A GOP ?witness? John Lott, latched onto Cruz’s arguments and said that ?blacks (who are poor and live in high-crime areas) are the most likely victims of crime and the ones who benefit the most from Stand Your Ground laws.? A Republican Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, also seemed to concur and said that he did not see how the law ?has a racial injustice about it.? Let me delve deeper into this issue and some of the stats, so that people will not be misled, which seems to be the Republicans? main goal here (either that or they are plainly ignorant and devoid of analytic capabilities). The story cited by Cruz mentioned how 55 percent of black defendants were successful in Stand Your Ground law cases, versus 53% of their white counterparts. What Cruz failed to tell you, is that the Congressional Research Service has also described some racially revealing facts about shootings and the so-called justice system. Not looking at Stand Your Ground specifically, they found that white-on-black shootings were found to be ?justifiable? way more often than black-on-white shootings. 
Another fact that Cruz failed to mention, is that the very same story from the Daily Caller,?which he used to spew his nonsense, found that killers are more likely to go free when their victims are black or Hispanic as opposed to white. In killings of black or Hispanic persons, the killers were found ?justified? in their actions 78 percent of the time but only 56 percent of the time when the victims were white. The Urban Institute did a study in states with Stand Your Ground laws specifically and found that ?white-on-black homicides are 354 percent more likely to be ruled justified than white-on-white homicides.? What are some things we can gather from these findings? I have done extensive research in college regarding crime and the death penalty for instance. I found that yes, black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty due to race but mostly economic factors like the inability to hire better lawyers and get an adequate defense. However, I found that the race of the victim plays a huge role in our justice system. Those who murdered blacks were way less likely to receive the death penalty than those who murdered whites, regardless of the perpetrators? race. This is similar to the findings stated above, that say homicides of black victims are more likely to be deemed ?justified?, legally, than those of white victims. There is a pattern here: the devaluation, degradation, and careless treatment of black bodies. This systematic phenomena can be seen with: slavery, lynchings, police brutality, and the killings of our young people by those who ?argue? self-defense. While Cruz was correct when he said that African-American victims have been more successful in Stand Your Ground cases, we must realize that most crime involving black victims also involve black perpetrators. This goes along with the notion that blacks are more likely to be jailed and found guilty of crimes. I already stated that studies have shown that white-on-black homicide has been seen as ?justifiable? at higher rates; so, if most of these black victims were killed by Whites, then Cruz would probably not have been able to cite such a statistic because that statistic wouldn’t exist. In other words, if black-on-black crime wasn’t the majority of black victim-based crimes, would we still say that black defendants were successful in Stand Your Ground cases 55% of the time? I would say, no. We must also examine the very concept of ?self-defense.? I believe that this term, while legally applicable to many defendants, carries racial prejudice that we have seen manifested via the Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis killings, not to mention the countless other homicides of our young black and brown brothers. With the Zimmerman trial, we were asked to essentially believe this: A grown man, around 200 pounds, got out of his car, carried a gun, but was scared for his life, by a 150 (or so) pound 17 year old, with no weapon. This skinny kid manhandled a grown man, with prior mixed martial arts experience, threw him to the ground, beat him up, and Zimmerman never tried to fight back, or wasn’t able to. That a kid can be ?armed with a sidewalk? and pose more of a threat than a man armed with a loaded gun. This, incredibly, was believed because Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges. He was justified in killing Trayvon Martin. In the case of Jordan Davis, while there has been no trial so all of the evidence has not been heard, it appears that we are to believe that an older white man can legitimately feel ?threatened enough? by a young black male with loud music, to shoot inside of his car 8 or 9 times, killing him. Again we see a pattern. Black and brown men are inherently seen as more violent, criminal, suspicious, and dangerous. Let us not forget the language Zimmerman used to describe a boy that he did not know as ?always getting away,” ?an asshole,? etc. These remarks show us that Zimmerman is ascribing criminal and negative traits to a person he doesn’t know, without credible evidence, in my opinion, based on his skin color and appearance. I deeply believe that no rational person in Zimmerman’s position would have truly been in imminent fear of his life or great bodily harm (which is the test for self-defense) considering the minimal injuries to Zimmerman’s body, and oh yeah, his incredibly inconsistent story. I propose to you that maybe he was in genuine fear but this is why: because he harbors racial prejudices that innately view blacks as more dangerous. He saw Trayvon as a threat, without seeing any weapon on him, or without having any contact with him whatsoever. In a sense, he was already afraid before any alleged fight ever even occurred. There is no doubt in my mind that if Trayvon was white, he would still be alive. So was Zimmerman in real fear for his life? Perhaps. But just because he is a prejudiced man (and I use the term ?man? loosely) doesn’t mean that his killing is justified, unless you believe racial profiling and prejudice are fair game (which, by the way, his defense team argued that it was). In the case of Jordan Davis, this same irrational fear can be seen. Loud music can be seen as threatening, thuggish, and dangerous. Jordan did not have to do one single thing but sit in a car, blast loud music, be black, and be seen as threatening. Do not take my word for it. Jordan’s killer, Michael Dunn, has written letters from jail that make him seem like a prejudiced, perhaps fully blown racist, 46- year-old white man. An article from NewsOne quotes Dunn, and he of course claimed that he felt ?threatened? by the teen who was inside of a car at the time he was killed. We can ask ourselves how an older man armed with a gun can feel threatened by a teen inside of his car who apparently was only blasting music at the time. But we can also ask ourselves, why did he shoot inside the car eight or nine times then drive away? Eight or nine gun shots does not seem like a panic reaction, one driven by imminent fear. Rather, it seems like an aggressive act by a hateful man who really could care less about the killing of a black person, even if that person is only seventeen years old. In what world is loud music and skin color threatening? At least threatening enough to ?justifiably? kill? Dunn also said that blacks in jail ?act like thugs.? He complained, saying:
This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.
Dunn is using the same tactics of Zimmerman; to ascribe traits and behaviors to an entire group of people without knowing them individually. There is nothing to my knowledge that says Dunn had any idea who Jordan Davis actually was. He doesn’t say exactly what Davis did that was so threatening. He only viewed him as another thug who needed to be killed. Dunn is an added example of a prejudiced man who was looking for an excuse to kill and is now hiding behind self-defense laws. This type of dangerous thinking leads to dangerous actions. There are many other Trayvon Martins and Jordan Davis? who are senselessly killed because of their skin color, appearance, or ?behaviors.? Many people are armed with something more dangerous than a gun: thoughts which tell them that people of color are inherently dangerous, that anything they do can be argued viewed as a threat, and more atrociously, if they die, it is not a real loss but instead, a burden lifted from society. Senator Cruz and other Republicans must not realize these harsh realities of Stand Your Ground laws and self-defense cases in general. To sit literally right in front of the grieving mothers of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, and argue that these laws are beneficial to African-Americans, is a huge slap in the face. Luckily, these two women are incredibly strong, bright, and know the truth. They know the continued, documented, and studied discrimination that people of color face. They know the unfair criminalization that takes place in our society which is mostly ascribed to black and brown men. They will continue to fight because our society is still in need of major education. If elected officials like Ted Cruz can be so blind, one can only imagine how incredibly oblivious many regular people in our nation are to the ongoing struggles of minorities. Edited/Published by: SB
