A Bloodly Week

The week started with news of the shooting of a young boy, a teenager, walking home from the store. He had been watching a game on TV and during half-time Trayvon went to buy a bottle of ice tea. He was asked to bring back a bag of Skittles for his younger brother.
The little brother never got the skittles.
A self-appointed neighbourhood watchman, called 9-11 to report a suspicious man. The dispatcher told the man he didn't have to follow the man.
But he did.
Trayvon was on the cell phone with his girlfriend. He was frighten; someone was following him. The girlfriend told him to run, but he decided to just walk fast.
Shots were fired. The boy hit the ground crying for help. But none came. His young body laid unclaimed in the morgue for three days. The police did not use Trayvon's cell phone to even contacted his parents. Drug testing was done on Trayvon. No drugs were found.
His mother and father didn't know where their son was, let alone he was dead for three days.

As the mother of a black son and two black grandsons, what happen to Trayvon Martin was amoug my worse nightmare. Like my mother before me, I always warned my son that there would be people who would only see your skin colour, always believe the worse of you even before they heard your name. You will have to work twice as hard to be considered just as good. Women will hold their purse closer to their person when yo walk by, store keepers will keep a closer eye on you. If you are walking through a nice neighbourhood, it will be assumed that you are up to no good. If you married someone non-white it is because you ashamed of who you are, you are marrying for the person's money and not for love. My mother said "maybe the world will change when you have children." I never dreamt that my son would now have to repeat these same words to my grandsons.
My heart breaks for Trayvon's mother and father, for his siblings and other family members. For America. Because Trayvon was a young American boy with his whole ahead of him. A good boy who never become a man.
But may his death be a wake-up call to this nation. To the hatred that still exist.
Tuesday, in France, a young Rabbi and two of his children, along with another small child, were shot to death in front of a Jewish school.

Their crime? Being Jewish.
We are the Unseen.
There are people who see me and yet look right through me. They see my skin colour, therefore I am a welfare mother, a drug addict, a maid or a street walker. They see my hair covered so I must be a muslin or a Jew, I am in a cult, I am oppressed and beaten by my father or my husband.
They see my white husband. So of course I married him for his money.
No matter how nicely I dress, I can walk into a store and a clerk who I am there to steal and will keep an eye on my moments. Mark and I have gone out to eat and the waiter will take Mark's order, but not mine.
A bloody week indeed.
It is now the year 2012. And this madness should not still be going on.

As a family, Mark, Montague and I stand with the Martin family and others victims of such injustice. We stand, wearing our Hoodies in support for Justice for Trayvon. For all our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.
Will you?