Dear Robert Zimmerman, Jr.:
Given that bashing Black people seems to be the family pastime, I imagine you don’t care much about what I think about you and your murderous, racist brother. However, considering you have spent the last year of your life spending as much time in front of the camera as much as humanly possible, maybe your megalomania compels you to read whatever appears in your Google Alerts. No matter the option, though, you and all that you represent are a poison that an already soiled media climate doesn’t need and it’s time more people stated such.
Frankly, I knew you weren’t worth even a decimeter of a damn long ago, but you truly proved how awful a person you were when you posted a picture of Trayvon Martin, a shooting victim of your vigilante, faux-Eddie Valiant brother side-by-side with that of the alleged killer of a 13-month-old baby back in March.
Who could forget that caption: “A picture speaks a thousand words. Any questions?”
I have a few. Other than their complexion and a photo with a raised middle finger, what did those two even have in common? Second question: Why is it that news networks like CNN and HLN continue to give you a platform to spew your falsehoods and thinly-veiled racist rants? Are ratings that important that a supposed news network is willing to allow some bigoted brother of another bigot go on-air and disparage Black people as if we’re nothing?
Bonus round: Can you guess which finger I’d like to wave right in front of you at this very moment?
If that despicable comparison wasn’t awful enough, your smug little self couldn’t resist further rubbing in your brother getting away with murder in a post-verdict interview with CNN.
There, you said, “I want to know what makes people angry enough to attack someone the way that Trayvon Martin did. I want to know, if it is true, and I don’t know that it was true, that Trayvon Martin was looking to procure firearms, was growing marijuana plants, or was making lean, or whatever he was doing. I want to know that every minor, high schooler, that would be reaching out in some way for help—and they may feel it’s by procuring firearms or whatever they may be doing—that they have some kind of help.”
This is the part where you should’ve been checked. Trayvon Martin isn’t the one with the extensive criminal history, your brother is—a fact you routinely ignore.
Isn’t it George Zimmerman who has been accused of domestic violence? Was it not George arrested and charged with "resisting officer with violence" and "battery of law enforcement officer?" Those were felony charges he escaped after entering an alcohol education program. And then later that year, Zimmerman’s ex-fiancé, Veronica Zuazo, filed a civil motion for a restraining order, alleging domestic violence. A year later, he was charged with speeding. Can’t forget about the woman who accused Georgie of molesting her either.
If there’s any "punk" walking around angry with substance abuse issues and a blatant disregard for authority, it’s George Zimmerman, not the child he murdered. But thanks to people like you, it was Trayvon who went on trial for his own murder, not the killer.
Suffice to say, you can take the following disingenuous question of your brother’s critics, swallow it whole and choke: “I wonder how many people at these rallies calling for his death, calling for his capture dead or alive, I wonder how many of them mentored African American children?”
The same goes for this silly little declaration: “I think it’s a time now going forward when we should start to ask really tough questions about why it was so hard for us to conceive of the likelihood that perhaps Trayvon Martin really did attack George this way and ask tough questions about, ‘Are we not willing to accept that because of race?’”
Do you want to know why Black people get angry? Because scum of the Earth like George Zimmerman can walk around with a gun and false sense of superiority, stop an unarmed Black child and begin an altercation with him, shoot him after he starts losing the fight he began and then end up not serving any prison time for it – plus getting the gun back to boot.
How ironic for you to say: "It's a reality that some people don't respect this verdict and think that they want to take justice into their own hands."
The most horrific aspect of it all is that not only can George Zimmerman get away with a racially-charged murder, his simple-minded, equally-prejudiced brother can make a media career out of it.
Michael Arceneaux is the author of the “The Weekly Read,” where tough love is served with just a touch of shade. Tweet him at @youngsinick.
