BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - “…in the wake of the verdict… passions may be running even higher.
But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken…” – President Barack Obama
Today’s blurb will not resonate with those who are part of, or, locally, in full agreement with the substantial negative and passionate reaction to the verdict in the recent criminal trial of Mr. George Zimmerman for causing the tragic homicide of 17-year-old Mr. Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, USA. But this reaction, manifested mainly in the form of public protest, might serve to provide what may be called “a teachable moment” for those who fail to appreciate a difference among popular sentiment, the law and justice.
Of course, an integral aspect of this entire matter is the contrasting ethnicities of the perpetrator and victim; the former, a Hispanic of Jewish extraction who, in the vernacular, “would pass for white”, the latter a black youth who “had not yet lost his mother’s features”. Understandably, therefore, the issue is being popularly analysed from a largely racial perspective.