On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, an African American teen walking home from a trip to a convenience store, is fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer patrolling the townhouse community of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman later claimed to have shot the unarmed 17-year-old out of self-defense during a physical altercation.
After police initially opted not to arrest Zimmerman, whose father is white and mother is Hispanic, the case sparked protests and ignited national debates about racial profiling and self-defense laws. Zimmerman later was charged with second-degree murder. Following a high-profile trial that riveted America, he was acquitted of the charges against him. The term “Black lives matter” was then used for the first time by organizer Alicia Garza in a July 13, 2013 Facebook post in response to Zimmerman’s acquittal. The phrase spread widely and became a rallying cry against racial injustice.
Trayvon’s Last Meal
Once upon a time, a teen, I stole
silver pieces from my mom’s purse,
because I had a habit to feed—and
mostly it didn’t matter because I could.
Every day, after school, candy
of every color; pimple bait only boys
who jerk off into dirty socks find
enticing, free to be ugly and dumb.
What I’m saying is I was unexceptional.
What is this? This guilt? Do memories carry
contriteness for every transgression, real or
especially imagined? Immunity’s having dough
and the answers to questions never even asked.
If you were innocent what would you choose
for your last meal? The entitled—amendable—
might say bread which is life which is God…and
before dying see what is white and what is wrong.
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More about The Blackened Blues:
THE BLACKENED BLUES is part of a large and ongoing project that discusses (and celebrates) some of the author’s personal heroes who remain far less celebrated than they deserve to be. As it happens, many of them are musicians, hampered in various ways by discrimination, ranging from old fashioned racism to institutional and cultural indifference. Though there’s an elegiac sadness suffusing these poems, there’s also acknowledgment of defiant genius: they fought their battles bravely, in their art and in their lives. This collection seeks to capture something (or, hopefully, more than a few things) essential about their lives, bearing witness while also paying homage. (Rhapsodies in Blue was published in 2023 and Kinds of Blue is forthcoming in spring 2024.)
