• On Life and Love

    Now Is Another Opportunity to Reimagine Justice

    I spent late Saturday night (while my neighbors were belting out Oasis’s “Wonderwall” to bad guitar accompaniment) watching Twitter and Facebook. The Zimmerman verdict (not guilty of either manslaughter or murder II) was out, and folks were outraged. “Not everything about race, dumbasses!” one person said. “Our justice system is broken!” said another. “No one in their right mind could say the prosecution proved beyond a doubt that Zimmerman didn’t fear for his life. That’s the letter of the law!” said a third. “Another black kid is dead, and Don West is crowing happily,” raged another. Whether or not Zimmerman made assumptions based on race, or had a racial motive…