The Neighborhood Terrorist

The recent tragedy of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an innocent teenager shot to death by overly zealous "citizen cop" George Zimmerman in a Sanford, Florida subdivision, has yet to be fully investigated. But this story has strongly galvanized public opinion, which seems to largely be going down the path of a narrative of racial persecution. Martin was black and his shooter wasn't. End of story, here comes Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and company to instantly whip up furor about how blacks can't even walk the streets without the danger of being persecuted, even to the point of death. Sadly, I think that they are correct. But there is a broader, even more ominous issue involved here, partially obscured by the racial framing of this tragedy.

I do my running primarily around my home neighborhood, in which I have lived since 1989. I run down the same streets and past the same houses over and over (and over) again. I'm not black nor do I wear a hoodie when running. In fact, I look like some pathetic white middle-age codger with a running shirt, shorts, cap, and running shoes. I hold (very visibly) a Gatorade bottle in my hand while running. Still, from time to time I have the unsettling experience of noticing vehicles slowing down around me and even stopping in the middle of the road as I run by, as if they are trying to determine whether I "belong" in "their" neighborhood. There seems to be this presumption that pedestrians are de facto suspicious and motorists are de facto legitimate, when in reality it is the person alone on the street who is more vulnerable to the motorist.

The idea that people-at-large can pack guns on themselves and go about judging who "belongs" and who doesn't, frankly, scares me. As a matter of fact, it is a form of terrorism, as far as I am concerned. This dude Zimmerman was warned by the police not to follow Martin, but he kept on. He was the aggressor, but in his mind he was the "good guy" trying to protect the neighborhood. And that's the operating definition of a vigilante: someone who thinks they're the "good guy" and who presumes the personal right to enforce their judgements against the "bad guys", even with violence and killing. But the effect of this behavior is to terrorize people to the point where they are too afraid to walk the streets in their own neighborhood anymore. So we're talking about more than a vigilante: the term "terrorist" fits more to me.

I have to compare which type of terrorism threatens me the most, the "Al-Qaeda" brand that brings out the stereotypical image of an Islamic extremist, or the home-based type in which individuals run rampant imposing their (often prejudicial) black-and-white worldviews on others with the force of arms. And I sadly must conclude that it is the latter category that imposes the greatest threat to me. By far. How about you?