Welcome to America, where we don't have freedom and justice for all.
That's the only conclusion you can draw from the awful verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.
The evidence pointed at least to manslaughter, and maybe the prosecutors erred by not charging Zimmerman just with that.
But the jury said not guilty even on that, and Zimmerman now walks free.
Had the roles been reversed, had an adult black man pursued and then killed a white teenager in the street, you can bet a million dollars that the verdict would have been different.
The simple, stark fact is that we don't have equal justice in America today, 50 years after the March on Washington.
What we have instead is a system of justice that is racist to the core.
Racist in who gets arrested.
Racist in who gets charged, and with what.
Racist in who gets convicted.
And racist in the sentencing.
You might think that Zimmerman got away because of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which is, indeed, a reckless license for vigilantism.
But consider the case of a black woman named Marissa Alexander, also in Florida, who in 2010 fired warning shots into her wall to try to scare off her allegedly abusive husband. She invoked "Stand Your Ground," and she's now doing 20 years behind bars.
It's impossible to escape the conclusion that here in America, we have one system of justice for white people and an entirely different one if you're black.
It's beyond sad. It's sickening.
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story Rick Perry Is Damaged Goods.
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