Written by Don Washington   

I’ve not written anything about the Trayvon Martin trial or the endless to near pointless coverage of it because I know it to be tip of an ugly thing this country is not going to ever face. Believe it or not that ugly thing is deeper than racism and printed on this country’s DNA like a curse from Satan’s lips. Trayvon was shot down in the streets of his father’s neighborhood because society gave Mr. Zimmerman permission to kill him, because permission has been granted.

Society also gave its permission to kill Dr. George Tiller, Bradon Teena, twenty-six children at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Knoxville Unitarian Church congregation members, Matthew Shepherd, Rekia Boyd and Shaima Alawadi and all Mr. Zimmerman and these other killers did was accept the responsibility for doing what society wanted, because permission has been granted.

When Mr. Zimmerman put a bullet through Trayvon’s heart he was not killing an anonymous stranger. The string of malice that wraps square-knot fast around those who race-bait, incite, frighten, misinform and give permission to millions of people to eliminate the enemy in this culture war they’ve started and those who act on that permission is both unbreakable and unmistakably easy to see. Because permission has been granted.

He had known Trayvon all of his life in the backbeat of racism that taint the words of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. When he saw Trayvon in his black hoodie that boy was known to him as the carjacking, drive-by inducing terror FOX News and Sen. Rand Paul had mentioned might be coming for him one day and the American Legislative Exchange Committee and the National Rifle Association had secretly armed him to stand his ground against. When his time came he was ready because permission had been granted.

Now here’s the horrifying irony… George Zimmerman is right; it’s not about racism because our problem is far more horrifying than the virulent racism that played a large part in the bullets Zimmerman used to kill a helpless teenager screaming for help in front of him. Permission has been granted.

I’m talking about the implicit understanding that non-white people, women and non-heterosexuals have only the barest of rights… if any in the minds of the truly angry or deeply frightened and are a convenient way for the truly powerful and wealthy to divide us from each other. Permission has been granted.

What I am telling you is that the same impulse that gunned down Trayvon expelled a dying poor, black woman from a St. Louis hospital so she could die on a jailhouse floor. That there is no difference between attacks on a woman’s right to the sanctity of her own body and the mad scramble to remove voting rights in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Permission has been granted.

I am saying as plainly as I can that the difference between the willingness to run over a black kid in a go-cart with your SUV as a woman did in Pearland Texas and the urge to eliminate food assistance for the poor are intimately connected. It is all about fury, resentment and the understanding that if one acts on those feelings permission has been granted

We live in a society where economic inequality makes more people more desperate and angry every day and access to guns is as easy as breathing. We live in a country where racism, xenophobia, ignorance and privilege are political footballs for some and public policy for others. Remember that they are granting permission

We live in a society of ambient anger and deep rage that is turned against scapegoats… the other… targets. These people with permission to defend themselves are becoming bolder and bolder as we, as a people, get further away from our government and the feeling that we have any agency over its actions. This is how permission is granted.

The truth of the matter is that people like Mr. Zimmerman have been given permission to carry weapons and in a society tainted with racism, sexism, malice, ignorance and anxiety. That they execute people they fear from time to time is to be expected because permission has been given.

We, you and I and people of good faith who believe in things like economic justice and social equality… things that discomfort powerful interests that hide behind a wall of terrified and now all too often armed people are facing an uphill battle. Now as we watch justice go undone in Trayvon’s death, state after state attack women’s and voting rights as every keystroke, phone call and e-mail we engage in is cataloged for future inspection in accordance to rules we will never be told I am mindful that we cannot give up. We cannot give in to cynicism and despair and we will not walk away from a lifetime of hard, hopeful work filled with defeats, victories and as always uncertainty.

We’d like a world with less rage and more love and just like always we are going to have to fight for it… not just for us but for people like George Zimmerman because that’s what happens when we win the world gets better. When they win seventeen year old boys get gunned down less than a mile from home. They no longer have permission to do violence unto us because in the end truth and mercy will outlast lies and revenge and we don’t get to give up because permission has not been granted.

Don Washington is an AP-Award winning writer, political expediter and problem-solver, proprietor of the agitational, informational, interactive website and show the Mayoraltutorial.com. You can follow him as drobsidian on Twitter and he is the keeper of one large and very intelligent cat.