A Most Bitter Irony. By Eric Smith

One of the great ironies I find in this ridiculous notion that to be young, black, and male is to be regarded as being threatening & violent is that the two faces universally recognized as symbolizing love, nonviolence, forgiveness, and reconciliation are the faces of two males of color by the names of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Each one of them was at one time a Trayvon Martin & a Jordan Davis; a young kid who happened to have dark skin struggling to survive and make a place in a world that regarded the deaths of those who looked like them as a case of addition by subtraction.

How odd indeed that these two males who's skin color alone marked them as a threat in the eyes of so many are the ones who's love of humanity made the difference between destruction and survival for not one but two nations. This irony will never escape me and I will never understand it. I am considered a threat & a symbol of violence because my skin is dark and my gender is male? Really? If that is so I ask those who think along these lines how was it possible for Fate to produce people like Dr. King & Mr. Mandela; the universal symbols of the exact opposite of what so many say people who look like me represent?

Every black male murdered either by SYG laws or by their fellow people of color has the potential of being the next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela. That is the potential we lost in Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis. That is what we lose every time one of our young people of color is lost to violence; a potential future symbol of hope and salvation for the world for how different & more terrible our nation and our world would be if Dr. King and Mr. Mandela had suffered the same fate as young Martin and young Davis when they were each their age. A strong case can be made that had such a thing happened there would not even be a world today at all.

So think about it. The loss of every Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis has the potential of being the end of the world at some future time for who is to say that they, like Dr. King and Mr. Mandela, would not have been the ones to save it but for a madman's bullet getting in their way long before they even had the chance to try?