Kinja reply list

I wonder how many people were radicalized by Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, Freddie Gray, or Eric Garner.

I know, for me, the character assassination of Trayvon Martin was what changed me. The media reaction seemed to be, “he was a black man in a hoodie... who wouldn’t feel threatened?” Then there were the pictures from social media, the fact that Martin had smoked the pot, and gotten in some minor trouble, that justified his dying.

I grew up in the South in an upper-middle class suburb. I remember a buddy of mine inviting me to go “garage shopping” (looking for unlocked garages to steal beer from). A few years later he and some of his friends had graduated to breaking into houses to steal prescription pills and other things to fund buying drugs. No one suggested they should have been shot for their transgressions. I just heard hushed voices talking about how sad it was that these boys had ended up that way.

I wonder why I never heard that about Trayvon Martin? Oh, right. He wasn’t white.

If Trayvon Martin deserved to die then my friend and I were Al Capone in 1920's Chicago.

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MattSHough
8/09/17 5:33pm
we called it garage hopping and no shit, how we did not get shot is beyond a mystery.
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SHoughMatt
8/09/17 5:43pm
Oh, I think it’s a mystery that solves itself.

I really have nothing to add, but I wanted to thank you for sharing this.

Well written.

“I can only say that—for some reason—I knew I had to be there.”

Best reason to be anywhere.

Great piece.