On my soapbox.

I was going to refrain from writing anything on the Zimmerman/Martin case, but my incessant tweeting about it is probably getting excessive at this point. I have an opinion. I may as well blurt it out like the rest of the internet.

Whether or not one agrees with the verdict of this tragic case or not (I certainly don't), it brings up a much bigger issue in this country that should have been eradicated in 1776 when we declared our independence. But it wasn't. We held men and women of color in slavery to serve us until 1865. In 1964, America decided that the color of a person's skin no longer mattered, and had zero basis for judgement.

I can not lie and say I've never walked home alone late at night and had an inkling of fear in seeing some "thugged out" men in my vicinity. It has been engrained in our culture that men of a certain color and certain dress are up to no good. They're robbers, rapists, and generally violent. They deal drugs and steal cars. They're all the same. It's in the media. It's in our upbringing...in America.

I lived in Oakland as a teenager, and I was driving through a West Oakland warehouse district for band practice one night. I was probably 18 years old. I was stopped at a red light when a police car pulled along side my car. The office asked me what I was doing. I told him I was waiting for the light to change. He told me to just drive through it because I wasn't safe just sitting there abiding the law. In case you are wondering, yes, the officer was a white male.

It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that my father told me about my family history. My grandmother was adopted into the colored side of the family. Being biracial in the 30s was not acceptable, and her white family gave her up to the black side. I never knew this detail about my grandmother growing up, and it never crossed my mind that some of my family had darker skin than me. Most of my family would actually tease me for being so fair. When my father finally told us about our black side of the family, we shrugged it off like it was no big deal. We're a multi-racial bunch...whatever.

Young people growing up in the melting pot of cultures that is southern California, I had ethnic neighbors. Black, hispanic, Indian, Asian. They were people we said hi to on the street. They came to birthday parties. We rode bikes and went to the park. We were friends. We were human. So, the news of my family also being ethnic did nothing to arouse me.

It just meant nothing to me. It didn't make me better or worse. I think my dad thought it might have meant something to us, but he grew up in a different time.

People want to pretend that this is not about race, but I beg to differ. I'm well traveled in this country, and I would go as far to say that most of it is still racist. Cities are still segregated by design, even if the law doesn't allow the enforcement of it. Many Americans are still outwardly racist and ignorant. Those that aren't just pretend that it's not an issue or live in some segregated community where they don't have to be bothered with people of color.

To say that George Zimmerman did not look at Trayvon Martin, racially profile him, follow him even after he was told not to by emergency operators, and then shoot him because he mistook a pack of skittles for a weapon is absurd. This was an act of racism. This was an act of ignorance. Maybe Trayvon did fight back in the wake of being followed by a stranger. We'll never know the details. But tonight a racist man walks free because a racist jury could not see that George Zimmerman did anything wrong by shooting and killing an unarmed teenager because that teenager was a black male.

The message that jury sent to the rest of the country says that Trayvon Martin must have been doing something wrong because he is a young, black male. The message that jury sent to the rest of the country was that it is okay to shoot a black person because they make us feel unsafe. The message that jury sent to the rest of the country is that we are still so deep-rooted in racism.

America, the free....

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. - United States Declaration of Independence; July 4, 1776

Justice has been served.

For the past ten years or so, I have followed the cases of the West Memphis Three, doing what I could with some financial donations here and there. I read books, watched documentaries, and regularly checked in on their website for updates regarding each of these wrongly accused boys. Occasionally their story would make a national headline, only to get swallowed up by the shadow of some political drama or natural disaster.

In all this time, my frustrations grew with our legal system and the ignorance that so many people have toward those that are slightly different. None of the evidence ever matched up for me, even when I tried to play the devil's advocate and look at these guys as guilty murderers. I watched portions of their original trials, where these so-called freaks were put up in front of the community to set an example: if you are different than the rest of us, you are a bad person. The clothes you wear, the strange haircut, the loud music coming from your room...it makes you a bad person. 

A poet and his best friends who liked to wear dark clothing and hang out in cemeteries were morphed from quiet and creative types to vicious murderers in a court room. There was no motive present in any of their cases. There was never proper physical evidence. There was a make believe cult and harsh discrimination. 

In a way, I empathized with these boys who turned into men behind bars. As we grow into ourselves, we change and develop our own sense of self. During that metamorphosis sometimes comes criticism and judgement. Almost everyone has been there at some point in their lives. I sometimes feel it when I walk into my relatively conservative office every morning. Unlike me simply cringing at the sight of certain people that are probably thinking awful things at the sight of me in the hall, these guys had to sit there and take a verbal beating for the murder of three children that they did not commit. So much so that they were convinced that admitting defeat at the very beginning would save them some time behind bars and maybe get them out sooner. 

Instead they were played for fools and received the harshest sentencing possible. Their supposed ring leader was sentenced to death, the other two received life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

Flash forward to present day. The persistence of those who truly believed that these boys were purely used as a scapegoat to protect the real devil in this case has finally triumphed. Unfortunately, three kids had to spend nearly twenty years behind bars for something they could have never imagined doing. But today, they got what they deserved. Freedom. Freedom to be themselves in the outside world.

Tonight, I will rejoice in their victory, as I kind of feel like it is a win for all of us who choose to set ourselves apart from the norm in our own way.

Cheers to the wonderful organization Free The West Memphis 3, all of the hard working staff and attorneys who poured everything they had into this case and never giving up, and the celebrities who used their names to gain recognition and raise funds for these boys.  More than anything though, cheers to every single person who took the time to educate themselves on the case and maybe even share it with someone else. Had the world never heard of the West Memphis 3, there would be three other lives lost in this tragedy. 

Congratulations, Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin. I hope tonight is the best night of your life.