This story is a month old, and the popular press is just getting around to it, but it's been getting attention from alt outlets and NPR for awhile now. If you are unfamiliar, here is some background:
http://gma.yahoo.com/trayvon-martin-...-abc-news.html
Anyway, a few thoughts. First off, this "stand your ground" law in Florida sounds kind of dumb. It basically states that if you are threatened, you are allowed to retaliate with deadly force and do not need to retreat. I say it's dumb because isn't that already the case? In THIS case, it actually sounds to me like if anyone in this situation could stand behind this law, it would be the dead kid, and NOT Zimmerman. After all, this guy was clearly stalking the kid, and menacing him. At the point of confrontation, it sounds to me like Martin was the only person threatened, not Zimmerman. And it's quite clear to me that the Sanford police department botched this and should have immediately arrested Zimmerman, who is quite obviously a racist, and his racism led to him now being a murderer.
HOWEVER, I am a little concerned about all this one-sided outrage from the black community. There is shared culpability here, and it's getting glossed over because it's un-PC to say what I'm about to say. If we are ever going to open up a real and honest dialogue, we have GOT to address the culture of fear that exists in BOTH communities, white and black. The black community has a deep distrust of the police, and there is certainly merit to that distrust. I think things are better, but not fixed. My concern is with the fact that there is a lot of founded fear in the white community that leads to troubling incidents like this. Let me give you an example from right in my own backyard.
In Akron (which used to be the tire capitol of the world) there was what used to be a very nice neighborhood called Firestone Park. this was a company community built around the Firestone tire plants pretty much designed for the workers. The community has fallen on some rougher times, and one of the recent bad developments is roving gangs of black boys "wilding", which is basically just a bunch of kids running around and randomly beating up white people whilst yelling racial epithets at their victims. This is, in my book, a hate crime, but it's never prosecuted as such because that too is un-PC (I vehemently disagree with hate crimes, but that is a topic for another discussion). This kind of behavior creates a very, very dangerous atmosphere in which white people live in a state of constant fear of young black men, and I want to make this point crystal clear, and the YOUNG BLACK MEN CREATE THIS IMAGE BY THEIR OWN BEHAVIOR. The black community accepts no culpability for this, and, when one of these young black men is eventually shot by a white person, the outrage from the black community, as we all know, will be fast and furious.
IMO, until the black community accepts responsibility for these young men for their part in this "state of fear", I don't believe we will ever reach a time or place where things like this aren't going to happen.
This case in Florida is reprehensible, and Zimmerman should be tried and convicted of first-degree murder, as he was told to back off, and actually doubled back around and clearly pressed the issue with intent and previous forethought of what he was doing. But until we can find a way to address both the founded fears of both communities, I see no end to these kinds of events in the future.