Worthy of Life

More than two weeks have passed since George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. This morning, two other all-too-familiar stories caught my attention on Democracy Now. In Florida, and unarmed 60-year-old African American man was shot by police in his yard. In Toronto, an 18-year-old was shot dead by police as he stood in an empty streetcar holding a knife. (The police were outside the car, out of harm's way.)

My heart hurts for all these families, and for the state of our society, in which life (especially - but not only - the lives of men of color) is so expendable.

So much of the Trayvon Martin trial and the conversation around it seem to have been devoted to discerning his character. The most basic fact of the case - that an unarmed 17-year-old boy was shot point-blank in the chest - was not compelling enough. Instead, the subtext became the question of whether Trayvon Martin was worthy of living - or at least worthy of having his life protected by the law. Is a black 17-year-old boy worthy of life? What if he is wearing a sweatshirt? What if he has used marijuana? What if he has been in trouble before? What if....?

These are the questions our society has been asking with a straight face. We have been weighing whether or not Trayvon Martin was expendable - whether (for reasons based on racial and class prejudice) he could reasonably be seen as so threatening that his right to life was forfeited.

The day after the George Zimmerman verdict, I found myself in the Los Angeles airport watching CNN as I waited for a flight. That morning I was appalled - though not surprised - when Newt Gingrich came on and attempted to pivot the conversation to the number of murders of black men committed by other black men in Chicago. It was clearly a very cynical attempt to say that a) black men really are scary and dangerous and b) we should be talking about that instead. (This seems to be a talking point that racist Fox News has been running with.) But I think the more disturbing undercurrent of Gingrich's and Fox's story line is that the life and death of people of color doesn't matter that much.

The week after the Zimmerman verdict, I read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. Published in 1993, it describes the USA in the 2020s, when climate change, economic and government collapse, privatization, inequality and disease have led to a nation in chaos. It was an eery read. In the 20 years since the book was written, we do seem in many ways to have headed in the direction that Butler imagined.

One of the characteristics of the decimated society Butler describes is the devaluation of human life. Gone are free public services. Gone is the expectation that all people should have access to public education, police protection, the fire department, water, or medical care. People who can't afford these things are left to die - and considered dangers to those who are well-off enough to access them. No one bats an eye if they happen to be killed.

Treating human life as expendable has a long history in this country. America has consistently treated black and brown people as expendable. And we shouldn't forget that poor white people have long been treated as expendable, too. It feels like it's getting worse. The fact that 80 percent of U.S. adults are close to poverty is yet another sign and symptom.

Though it can feel like such a small thing, this all reminds me of why building community is so important. So many forces are seeking to divide us, to make us question what we know: that life is sacred. Just as we have to commit to political action, we have to commit to loving each other, being in relationship with each other, and cherishing all life and each life.