Trayvon Martin

I have been reading and watching news reports about the teenage boy in Florida who was shot by the leader of a neighborhood watch group.  Trayvon was an African-American youth who had gone to the local store to buy candy.  He was wearing a hoodie.  He was headed back to his father's house where he had been with his dad and his dad's girlfriend.  He carried no gun or other weapon.
That sounds like a normal teenager doing a normal thing, but to the leader of the neighborhood watch group, George Zimmerman, he was a black kid who was probably up to no good.
Zimmerman followed him in his vehicle, yelled at Trayvon (scaring him - you never know what a guy in a strange van has in mind), and when Trayvon began to run away, Zimmerman got out, pursued him, and eventually shot him ... dead.
Zimmerman was questioned briefly, released, and no charges have been filed.  The rationale?  Florida has a "stand your ground" law which allows citizens to defend themselves, even using deadly force when threatened.
Oklahoma has a similar law.  To my knowledge, nobody has been cleared of wrongdoing except where there was a real threat.  Nobody escaped felony charges when they were pursuing the person who was shot.
We are a state that prizes individual freedom and that allows guns to be carried in public.  Heck, we used to be a haven for outlaws (hence the name of my blog).  But don't try a "Zimmerman" here - you will be arrested, and an Oklahoma jury will not be sympathetic.  Guns are prevalent here, and gun safety and common sense are required.
But apparently in Sanford, Florida, all that is trumped by race.  The local police chief (who has since resigned) understands why a citizen would assume that a black teen in a predominantly white neighborhood was suspicious.
Really?
The color of our skin is a function of melanin.  Melanin is naturally produced, and it acts to turn pigment dark when exposed to sunlight.
Long ago, our ancestors moved around in tribes.  Those that moved north, into the cloud forests of Europe, discovered that having dark skin and dark eyes was a negative.  Dark eyes don't see as well in foggy conditions, and those with such eyesight are more prone to be ambushed by bears.  Dark skin filters out sunlight, resulting in rickets (a vitamin D deficiency disease).  Nobody with bent legs from rickets gets laid.  Recent victims of bear-mauling are also unattractive to the opposite sex and don't get to reproduce.  The result is that northern tribes ended up mostly fair-skinned and blue-eyed.
On the other hand, tribes that headed south found themselves in hot, sunny conditions, where a lack of melanin led to sunburned skin and eventual skin cancer.  Peeling skin and oozing sores are a real turnoff, so those folks didn't get laid.  Blue eyes let in more sun.  While that is a benefit in the cloud forests, light-eyed people in bright sun have to squint.  Leopards perched high above in trees found such people to be easy targets.  So, southern tribes gradually weeded out the blue-eyed, melanin-deficient members and became dark-skinned people.
So, Zimmerman, how do we get from surviving bear attacks or skin cancer to a bigoted attitude that assumes someone who is not melanin-deficient is a criminal?
Not by using our brains! (Something we all have inherited, no matter from which tribe we descended.)
Zimmerman and his cohorts do something quite common.  They categorize and compartmentalize.  It's a short cut way of making decisions quickly, similar to the algorithm used by Google to direct search traffic.  We develop algorithms that take input (such as melanin content, type of apparel, body piercings, etc.) and, based on a person's past experiences with unique individuals who had similar characteristics, we place the subject into a category (eg, a thug) without any actual basis for the categorization.  It allows us to make quick decisions that protect us from unpleasant encounters.
Those algorithms also prevent us from learning anything new that might challenge the truth of our assumptions.  Those algorithms also keep us from learning about new people outside our "tribe".  Such an algorithm allowed George Zimmerman to gun down an innocent young man without any real provocation.  Similar algorithms allowed the police to accept Zimmerman's story and take an understanding view while discounting the life of Trayvon Martin.

Left unprotested, this situation would make me cynical about the future of our species.  Fortunately, many people have heard the story and voiced their protests.  The mayor and police chief have resigned.  A new prosecutor has been appointed.  George Zimmerman still remains at large.
So, I'm not totally cynical, but I remain skeptical.  How many people gathering in support of justice does it take to nudge the established powers off their porcelain thrones and into action to provide equal justice?  Will we ever get beyond visual cues and see the color of skin as a matter of melanin?  As a melanin-deficient American, I want this race crap to get behind us before remnants of the northern tribes are always recognized as potential serial killers.
What about you?  Do you see this as an indictment of neighborhood watch groups?  Do you think the police can do an effective job without them?  Are your local police color-blind or racist?  Have you been the victim of ignorant categorization?  Let me know your story.