"Forget it, Jake, it's Florida"

    I hate to wade into this but I must.
   The absolute hysteria that has surrounded the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case has made it so difficult to absorb its impact objectively in any possible way as the media are forcing Americans to take sides — however misleading and misinformed they may be.
   The fact that an unarmed young black man was killed by an armed, non-black, admitted trigger-puller and that no arrest has been made appears to a signal that it OPEN SEASON on African-Americans in the 'land of the free.'
  Black people in the USA are beyond exasperated from being singled out as suspicious.
  But I am not black, so the previous sentence, as genuinely objective as I aim it to be, remains the perspective of a 21st Century white male.
   I have experienced (and it continues at times) outright prejudices simply by my gender, the color of my skin and now, more frequently, my age {ouch}. And then when my religious roots are exposed it can be almost shocking what kind of reaction I receive from a number of people.
   Growing up, my family moved frequently: I was always the new kid, the outsider.
   One of the 'fortunate' aspects of growing up in sometimes Third World countries before starting high school was the natural acceptance that comes through cultural immersion — that everybody in the world doesn't look, sound or believe the same things as I do. I have lived in situations where I was in the racial minority and one does look at situations differently when placed in this position.
   But all that has given me only a glimpse of what African-Americans go through in the US, every minute of every day.
   Most rational people believe George Zimmerman should have been arrested and charged with something. 
   This is the perplexing and humiliating fact which I believe is pumping up the rage among African-Americans. The perception is if you have 1% of black ancestry in your veins you can be abused or slain with impunity by someone without 1% of African-American blood. And this has to stop.
   One underplayed aspect in this entire test from our Creator is that the incident took place in Florida.
   Gun and self-defense laws, especially one as gray as 'stand your ground,' are quite different in Florida than in most states and it has caused a mess of this case.
   But we all have to be patient and have faith that the truth will come out and Trayvon Martin will have not died in vain.
   One way to begin the process is to plead with our national icons not to wade into a case which they know nothing about: they were not there.
   After President Obama said, "He could have been my son," it was a signal to the media and Black America to begin the prosecution of a man who again, for reasons right or wrong, has not been charged.
   Seizing the baton, film director Spike Lee (emerging as one of the greatest racists of our time) published an erroneous address and urged thousands in the Twitterverse to harass the 'suspect.'
    Mr. Lee should consider himself an ambassador, a statesman — art has a huge impact on society, and his own struggles and God-given talents, again, have placed him on another level: he represents a deliverance to many.
   But no, he uses unsubstantiated rumors to spread among his hundreds of thousands of followers via Twitter [brilliant] as to where the 'suspect' lives, winking to his frothy throng to ‘do the right thing.’
   Well, of course when his call to action ended up targeting two innocent elderly people he comes back with a lame apology for what even The Washington Post described as “a mean, boneheaded, thoughtless and harmful thing to do — just like a lot of things that go down on Twitter.”
   Mr. Lee’s professional success in life has positioned him with the rare and privileged opportunity to advance the struggle of African-Americans. And what does he do with it? Buys a mansion where the white folks live and sits in the front row of every professional basketball game he can find. I'm thinking' he's among the 1% who can afford it. I'm sure he believes the majority of people he claims to speak for think he's doing "the right thing".
   And a double-team by the once revered Lawrence O’Donnell and a New York Times reporter named Blow to use the suspect's friend — an African-American — as a punching bag on national TV was remarkably rude, yet not entirely unexpected, from a fifth rated ‘network’ scratching to boost ratings.
   It's just disgusting how the case has gotten out of hand.
   Back off.
   Exhale.
   Let justice work (sometimes it is very, very slow [and where are they going to find a jury?]).
  But justice will prevail.
editor's note: Title is a play off a classic line of one of the best movies ever, Chinatown.