Feeling for Both

My “To Do” list isn’t necessarily long today, but the tasks will take time.  So I don’t have much time.  But I feel the need to write this post.

I said recently how badly I felt when George Zimmerman first appeared in court with his new attorney.   I saw a nice looking man, obviously distressed, and seemingly dazed and baffled by the situation.  I saw a second destroyed life.  Not that I hadn’t wanted him to be arrested.  From my perspective, if he had only done as told and NOT followed Trayvon Martin, a teenager would be alive today.  However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize that the possibilities that might be represented by George Zimmerman’s life are very likely also dead. 

I wondered how all this had happened.  I wondered if his parents had failed to instruct him in respecting authority.  I wondered if he had been raised in a home where stereotypes and seeing life through narrowed and perhaps accusatory, haughty eyes, was the norm.  Was he one of those people driven to be in control and his family had failed, or maybe just didn’t know how to teach him that such desire was destructive for him and his life?  OR, had George Zimmerman, having grown to manhood, chosen to approach life from a totally different viewpoint than that of his upbringing?  He is, after all 28 years old, and beyond the age where he has begun to make his own life choices.  Either way, I found the resulting consequence a very sad commentary on allowing oneself to accept thought patterns that assume the negative; that exclude others; that make one decide s/he knows more than others; that makes one decide against being compliant in situations where compliance would be the wise thing. 

I thought about how extremely frightened he had to be and about how devastated his family had to be.  All because this man had ignored the regulations of the Neighborhood Watch program which said he should not carry a weapon.  All because, even after having failed to see the wisdom of such a regulation and having decided to therefore ignore it, he also decided against waiting for the proper authorities to arrive.  All because he felt he could judge what behavior was or was not suspicious.  All because he assumed the negative about someone he didn’t know, without any internal conversation to question his assumptions. 

Last night I saw him in court again, dressed in a nice suit, but unable to walk easily or to shake hands easily because the chains going from his feet up around his waist and hands prevented his doing so.  I’m not so sure those chains were necessary.  After all, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere.  Surely he would be afraid to try and escape.  Surely he knew that to do so would put him at great risk.  Maybe the chains are used for all suspects in a murder; I hope that is the case.  Anyway, I thought about his mother, watching television and seeing her son in such a dire predicament.   I thought about how both she and Trayvon’s mother had so much in common.  They had both given birth to infant sons, held them that first time, loved them immediately, and wanted to protect them and provide as good a life for them as possible.  And both have suffered a terrible, life-altering loss.  And both want the same thing for their sons; justice as they see it. 

I’ve been told that the fact that I can feel for both Trayvon Martin’s family, as well as that of George Zimmerman, and George Zimmerman himself shows that I can see both sides of an issue.  I would like to think I live life trying to see all sides of an issue.  But the fact is I only know one thing for sure.  I see destroyed lives on both sides.  And I find that incredibly sad.