I normally comment on current events on Facebook or Twitter…but I have too many words for two stories making headlines today. So I’m commenting here:
I believe the average person “celebrating” the acquittal is forgetting something terribly vital: A 17yo died after buying Skittles. So, even if the acquittal followed the letter of the law – which I truly believe it did due to the prosecution failing to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt – you still have to be sad that a child is dead and no one is held responsible. That happens often – there are accidents and unsolved crimes – and it’s always heartbreaking. Family, friends, community…they all need someone or something to blame after a tragedy and now Trayvon’s murder is just a sad statistic that no one will be punished for. This is exactly how I felt:
You can respect a verdict as a matter of law and express revulsion with a verdict as a matter of justice and morality.
— Matt Ford (@HemlockMartinis) July 14, 2013
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The whole thing is just sad and anyone celebrating – even though I believe the acquittal was legally the proper outcome – just breaks my heart. How can anything about the death of a child not be coated in at least a tiny bit of sadness. Yes…if he had been found guilty after the prosecution failed to do their job…even I would have been disappointed. But I’m not celebrating over here. Because a child is still dead.
Pray for an America not where future Zimmermans aren't acquitted but where future Trayvons aren't shot in the first place.
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) July 14, 2013
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And then another thing. I am truly sick about Cory Monteith’s death. I am a huge fan of Glee and I love him dearly. I love his relationship with Lea Michelle as they seemed like a truly sincere couple. I love his openness about his struggle with addiction and about his attempts at rehab. I love how much that cast vocally supported him through all of that. And now he’s dead. One of my twitter friends (with a protected account so I won’t link to her) said it best: The words that make me the most sad in celebrity passings are these: “(S)He died alone.”
I never scoff when people are truly sad about the death of someone they don’t know. It seems silly to some people but I have always understood it. My heart doesn’t always break with celebrity deaths, besides Cory it’s probably Heath Ledger’s that broke my heart last. These are people who’s faces in their TV/Movies play a huge part in my experience of life. My kids and I watch Glee together…Knight’s Tale is on my top-10 list of favorite movies…these things cement the faces of these celebrities in your life-experience so when they die…those memories turn sad.
And I’m sad for all of the teens on Tumblr right now who idolized Cory and posted gorgeous art and wrote fan fiction about him. I see that stuff a lot on my dashboard and it always makes me smile. But now I think of all of those artists and their broken teenage hearts and I’m sad. I saw this one line on my dashboard and it broke my heart:
“Go tell your idol you love them…because i don’t have mine anymore”
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Thank you for being patient and allowing me to prattle on. I tried to do this on Facebook and Twitter this morning and just realized I couldn’t condense it enough.
I’m having a hard time forming coherent thoughts about Martin. I read the jury instructions and there was a specific point under “excusable homicide” that I thought would be the deciding factor (it was about killing in the heat of passion if reasonably provoked). I personally didn’t believe that TM started that fight, based on the lack of evidence on his body, and thought the jury might agree and vote manslaughter. They didn’t, and I respect that. But I can’t help but notice people STILL calling the Casey Anthony jury morons. They will quickly say Zimmerman wasn’t the jury’s fault, that the Prosecution simply didn’t prove its case, but where was that sentiment in the Anthony trial?
A woman in Kentucky shot her boyfriend and claimed self defense. They’re both white, he was an attorney… she’s not out on bail. But Zimmerman was? There are just so many little pieces of this that seem to show the “worth” we put on a young black man’s life, and it is really heartbreaking to me.
I didn’t watch Glee, so I don’t know Monteith, but it’s always so sad to hear someone so young dying. Particularly of an od, there’s just something so saddening about that. (And, DUDE, I thought I was the only person on Earth that loved a Knight’s Tale!)
I am sick about Cory. I feel like I knew him, which of course I didn’t. I knew Finn, though, and he has died, too.
I had to stay away from social media a bit today when a friend posted a status that said she’d want to leave the country if Cory Monteith’s story got more coverage than the Martin verdict. It made me angry because I hate quantifying or comparing grief.
Thanks for the incredibly well written thoughts.
The Corey thing has just left me so sad and exhausted. The part that crushes me though is that Lea is going to have to take Rachel through Finn leaving (no matter how they do it) and … I just can’t breathe imagining her needing to open a script (NEXT WEEK) to see what they are going to do.
I feel the same sadness and disappointment over the Zimmerman case, its so hard to feel like the decisions Zimmerman made that night (i.e. to follow and pursue Martin even after alerting the police) directly resulted in a young man losing his life, yet he was convicted of nothing. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, yet I get it. The jury really had very little choice I felt. It just sucks. Someone on twitter said Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder, but he is still a killer. His brother commented that now he feels like he is a marked man and “needs his gun more than ever” LORD please do not let this man relocate to my community, because he will assuredly be looking at EVERYONE as the enemy.
As for Cory when I heard the news, I was just so very very sad. I am not even sure I will be able to watch how they end Finn on Glee.. heartbreaking
I completely agree that there should not be celebration of any kind but there’s this bit of me that stirs at the notion that this is a failure of the prosecution. I think in general people agree guilt was not proven but I think we need to leave room to consider it could not be proven because it wasn’t there, not because a prosecutor did a bad job.
Otherwise we’re saying we know better, despite the jury’s decision. And all we really know is what we were either fed by ratings hungry media – or what was shown in court, which resulted in a not guilty verdict. I believe there is much guilt involved here but it lays at the foot of every media outlet that made this a national story by attempting to try the case in the court of public opinion, with or without all the facts.
That being said, as a resident of North Florida I take solace in the fact that anything that puts egg on the face of Angela Corey’s prosecutory record is a win for us all and makes America a safer place to live.