White supremacy in America had much to do with the not-guilty verdict on charges of manslaughter and second-degree murder in the George Zimmerman trial, according to the Nation. Zimmerman, described by some as "white Hispanic," operated under the logic of white supremacy — and so did the jury.
In the last few days, Latinos in particular have spoken up again about Zimmerman's race, and the "white Hispanic" label especially, largely responding to social media users and mass media pundits who employed the term. Watching Zimmerman in the defense seat, his sister in the courtroom, and his mother on the stand, one can't deny the skin color that informs their experience. They are not white. Yet Zimmerman's apparent ideology—one that is suspicious of black men in his neighborhood, the "assholes who always get away—" is one that adheres to white supremacy. It was replicated in the courtroom by his defense, whose team tore away at Rachel Jeantel, questioning the young woman as if she was taking a Jim Crow–era literacy test. A defense that, during closing, cited slave-owning rapist Thomas Jefferson, played an animation for the jury based on erroneous assumptions, made racially coded accusations about Trayvon Martin emerging "out of the darkness," and had the audacity to compare the case of the killing of an unarmed black teenager to siblings arguing over which one stole a cookie.
When Zimmerman was acquitted today, it wasn't because he's a so-called white Hispanic. He's not. It's because he abides by the logic of white supremacy, and was supported by a defense team—and a swath of society—that supports the lingering idea that some black men must occasionally be killed with impunity in order to keep society-at-large safe.
Read more at the Nation.
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