“Heaven Help Us All”
Then were there brought to him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come to me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them, and departed there.
Matthew 19:13-15 (KJV)
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
As I search for answers from any and everyone that witnessed the outcome of the faux trial of George Zimmerman, I find myself bumping my head against giant boulders as if I were wandering blindly through the Grand Canyon.
I’m concerned that the conduct of a ‘wanna-be’ policeman who used an outright form of racial profiling to mask the murder of a young boy whose only crime was being Black. This seemed to sift through the minds of many like sands through an hour glass.
To try to find rhyme or reason of the George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict escapes the most legally brilliant minds.
For the life of me, I do not understand how a not guilty verdict can be rendered for an armed man, who murdered a boy, who was scared and fearful of his life as he was being followed and chased in the dark and rain by a complete stranger.
How far have we come from the Fugitive Slave Law where any slave or freed Black person who could at any moment be brought back and enslaved? This law put fugitive slaves at risk for recapture. It also classified children born to fugitive slave mothers as slaves and the property of the mother’s master for all their lives.
How far have we come from Money, Mississippi, where in 1955 a 15-year-old Black boy name Emmett Till was brutally murdered and his accusers were found not guilty? His mother had enough audacity to have an open casket so the world could see the mutilated face of her son done at the hands of white people for no other reason except for the color of his skin.
How far have we come when one of our Black boys goes to a store, pick up candy and a soft drink… only to be found dead and tagged as a John Doe in a police morgue?
America is being seen by the world and has a chance to rectify a history of wrong doings perpetrated on a race of people who help to build this country.
America has an opportunity to change the course of her history, one that is woven with hatred through the fabric of time.
In the words of Stevie Wonder’s song ‘Heaven help us all’, I’m reaching out to everyone of us who will be affected by the murder of Trayvon Benjamin Martin:
Heaven help the child who never had a home, Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone. Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall, Heaven help us all.
Heaven help the Black man if he struggles one more day, Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away, Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl, Heaven help us all.
Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one, Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun. Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep. In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep, keep hatred from the mighty, And the mighty from the small, Heaven help us all.
We have the opportunity to dispel W.E.B. Dubois statement, “A system cannot fail those it was not built to protect” , when we work together to change the system.
