Please Do Not Forget About Trayvon Martin

By Ilex Bien-Aime

Human beings have short attention spans. One minute we are consumed with something and the next minute we are finding something to replace that interest. The media is the same way – they love a hot story but only until another hot story comes along. God knows that about a month ago I was so tired of hearing about the “Occupy Movements”. Today, you barely know that they are still going on. This world is ever-changing with violence and disasters taking place almost on a daily basis. The news could be reporting on a case that interests us only to break away to some new, over-the-top story.That is why I say, don’t forget about Trayvon Martin!

Right now Black America is up in arms about this case. It’s not the first time that something like this has happened and I am sure that it will not be the last time. With that being said, we have the ability to make some serious changes to laws and how the system handles these types of cases. I have watched many late night news shows about this case and a lot of the commentators are saying that we will forget about this soon – maybe that’s their hope. If we do this, we will be doing ourselves a great injustice and that would not motivate our system to change.

We need to rekindle the fire that Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and many other black Civil Rights leaders started. The courts and the system back then were just as corrupt or even more corrupt than it is now but because we fought, the system had to bend. They didn’t bend because they saw the error of their ways. They bent because we would not allow ourselves to continue to be mistreated. Now today we are so comfortable in our settings that we refuse to fight and they keep abusing us. Instead of the entire community getting into the fight, we have one side that refuses to fight, another side who fights foolishly, and  another side that fights until they get bored.

We don’t have the luxury of having all of these sides. Trayvon is our son, cousin, nephew, friend, and in essence our very selfs. For many of us this story hurts but because it happened hundreds of miles away or because it isn’t our child, we aren’t taking the action that we should be taking. When people like Zimmerman get away with something like this, it makes it easier for this type of action to continue. It is only a matter of time before one of us gets badly hurt or killed because we looked suspicious to someone.

Please let us continue to keep this story in the news! Let’s continue to march, send letters, and do whatever it takes (peacefully) to show that we are not going to forget. Let us not rest until we get justice. Let us stop looking for some great person to save us or some government official and let us take it into our own hands (within the scope of the law). I am proud of what our community is doing thus far but let us not stop until we reach our goal and please please please DO NOT FORGET ABOUT Trayvon Martin!

Ilex Bien-Aime is an integral part of the BlackLoveAndMarriage.com team. He lives in Washington, DC with his lovely wife. He writes as a man who has seen women mistreat themselves and who have allowed themselves to be mistreated. He writes as a man who wants to give his future daughters a guideline on how to deal with men. Lastly he writes what he writes because his female friends are always asking his opinion about these situations. Connect with Ilex at Iamsayingit.blogspot.com or via email atilexbienaime@gmail.com.