Trayvon Martin’s Story Shows Why White People Calling the Police on Black Children Isn’t Harmless

The first episode of the JAY Z produced docuseries Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story debuted on both BET and the Paramount Network and stirred strong reactions and emotions for viewers via social media.


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As the story of the murder of the unarmed teenager on that dreadful night of Feb 26, 2012, unfolded, with details previously withheld from the public, viewers were baffled at how the known killer was allowed to walk despite the mounting evidence that showed George Zimmerman not only stalked but planned to kill Martin.

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One fact that was omitted from the public until now is that Zimmerman had a history of calling police on Black children for being Black children. In more than a dozen calls prior to the murder of Martin, Zimmerman can be heard on tape calling the police on children under the age of 12 years old for “playing in the street.”

“Umm yes my name is George and I would like to report that there are children playing the street,” Zimmerman said in the audio. “They are starting to do this habitually and I wanted to see if someone could come out here because it’s causing trouble.”

Those sentiments have been heard multiple times in 911 calls across the country often times resulting in the premature death of our children at the hands of law enforcement. This is why when we see a #BBQBecky or #PermitPatty that we have to look at the seriousness of what they are intending to do when they knowingly call the police on a brown child or person of color. In this day and age with news coverage and the issue of police brutality in the Black and Brown communities coming to light on a national scale,there is no way that the white women and men are innocently calling for the intervention of police on nonhostile issues, that truthfully could easily be resolved if they minded their own business.

“You have an alarming tendency of white people starting to use 911 as their kind of customer service line when they have any friction with a black person,” USC Gould School of Law Professor Jody Armour told NPR. “You can look at what’s going on now as just an expression of the age-old black tax,” Armour continues. “The black tax is the price black people pay because of stereotypes and prejudice in America in their official interactions with police and in their everyday actions of ordinary citizens.”

The calling of police with the added fretting of their voice to increase the ideology of threat or danger proves that those want to be “whistleblowers” are really sadists looking to see an execution of what they consider as a pest. This shows that not only do they know that the call could result in the murder of an innocent person, but they, in a way, hope that it does by adding the dramatic effect during the call and when the officer arrives on the scene.

This is why laws like Florida’s infamous “Stand Your Ground” law must be abolished and callers who knowingly make fake emergency calls should be charged with disturbing the peace and fined. Until there is legal retribution for this type of behavior, it will continue. The fear mongering towards African-Americans and continued monstrous personas given by law enforcement, allow them to vilify our children, husbands, and daughters with no recourse. Above all things, this docuseries proves that as a community, we need to be rallying together to ensure that the right lawmakers are in office, the right legislature is there to protect those laws and highlights the importance of knowing how the laws and legislature work civilly and locally.

Movements are being birthed, but then what?

The murder of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland all sparked huge movements and participation in marches across the country resulting in highways being shut down and protests, but not much else. So where do we go from here?

Over the last year, since the election of Donald Trump and inclusion of known white supremacists and Zionists on ballots across the country, there has been an increase in African American women put their name on the ballots to make a change.

According to national reports, more than 15,000 Black women have added their names to the ballots nationwide, aiming for political offices from mayoral to judges and governors.

“If our government doesn’t look like the people it’s supposed to represent, that means there are a ton of voices, perspectives, issues, challenges that certain communities are facing that don’t have a voice,” She Should Run staff member Jenn Addison told The Grio in an interview.

Part of sparking a true change to ensure that families don’t have to experience the pain of the Martin Family and the family of Nia Wilson is to get involved and mobilize. Create the voice in our communities across the country and be heard. Be the change by investing in our own communities, policing our own communities, voting, serving our communities with after-school programs and investing in education. The disservice to our community definitely starts at home and until we see the value in ourselves, we will continue to see documentaries and hear stories like this.

The Rest in power: the Trayvon Martin Story hopefully sparked the outrage to finally lead to results we have been trying to achieve for more than a century, the time for change is now.

Check out the first episode of the powerful docuseries The Rest in power: the Trayvon Martin Story here.

Be sure to check out the next episode that airs Monday, Aug 6th on BET and Paramount Network at 10 pm est.