Dispatches from the Zimmerman Trial

[Content Note: Racism; eliminationist violence.]

The George Zimmerman trial, and much of the media coverage thereof, is a racist clusterfuck and a total disgrace. There are times when I start to write something, and I don't know what else to say besides that. The treatment of Rachel Jeantel is a disgrace. The defense's case is a disgrace. The defense team's behavior out of court is a disgrace. This isn't what justice should look like. I am not such a fool, however, as to believe this is not what it looks like for marginalized people most of the time.

In this morning's testimony, the lead investigator on the case (which originally did not even charge Zimmerman with the killing of Trayvon Martin), Chris Serino, was asked by prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda whether referring to people as "fucking punks," as Zimmerman did on the non-emergency call he placed to police before killing Martin, is indicative of "ill will or spite," which is a reference to the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman, a conviction for which is contingent on the state proving he acted with ill will and spite. Serino conceded that it did.

But when defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked Serino if "these assholes always get away," a phrase Zimmerman also used during the same call, demonstrated ill will or spite, Serino replied: "If I may, not towards and individual—it seemed like more of a generalization."

One of the central pieces of this case is that George Zimmerman saw Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager minding his own business, as a threat, a "fucking punk," for no reason other than that he was black, a prejudice which is born of monolithizing an entire community. That's what racism is.

And yet now a police officer testifies in the trial of that racist killer that "these assholes always get away" isn't ill will or spite, because it's a "generalization" about an entire community, rather than a specific comment about Trayvon Martin.

The whole fucking point is that George Zimmerman didn't see Trayvon Martin as an individual. And now the very fact of his generalized, nonspecific hatred might be the thing that sees him freed.