Justice for Trayvon?

Miami Heat ~ March 22

It took a few weeks for the political opportunists to seek advantage from the tragic shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida last February 26. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and President Obama have commented on the case with words designed to foment racial division during an election year. The Black Panthers have put a $10,000 bounty on the shooter. And others, like at least one member of the House of Representatives and the entire Miami Heat basketball team, have taken to wearing hoodies to show their solidarity with Martin. 

While the case is being investigated by local law enforcement, the FBI and Justice Department, it was heartening to read Juan Williams' thoughtful and provocative op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, titled The Trayvon Martin Tragedies, where he asks the bigger, more important questions.

"The shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida has sparked national outrage, with civil rights leaders from San Francisco to Baltimore leading protests calling for a new investigation and the arrest of the shooter.

"But what about all the other young black murder victims? Nationally, nearly half of all murder victims are black. And the overwhelming majority of those black people are killed by other black people. Where is the march for them?

"Where is the march against the drug dealers who prey on young black people? Where is the march against bad schools, with their 50% dropout rate for black teenaged boys? Those failed schools are certainly guilty of creating the shameful 40% unemployment rate for black teens.

"The most recent comprehensive study on black-on-black crime from the Justice Department should have been a clarion call for the black community to take action. There is no reason to believe that the trends it reported have decreased since 2005, the year for which the data were reported.

"Almost one half of the nation's murder victims that year were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation's murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report. "