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| FILE - In this July 20, 2013, file photo, people protesting the George Zimmerman verdict gather in prayer in front of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Riverside, Calif. Community leaders and scholars say the overwhelmingly peaceful response to the Zimmerman verdict reflects increased opportunities for African-Americans, the powerful image of a black president voicing frustration with the verdict, and the modern ability to create change through activism and social media rather than a brick. |
The predictions were
dire: Black people would burn and loot America's cities if George
Zimmerman was found not guilty. White people everywhere would be
attacked in revenge for the killing of Trayvon Martin.
Judging
from water-cooler conversations, social media and viral emails, many
people took these warnings seriously - yet they proved to be largely
wrong.
Community leaders and scholars say the
overwhelmingly peaceful response to the Zimmerman verdict reflects
increased opportunities for African-Americans, the powerful image of a
black president voicing frustration with the verdict, and the modern
ability to create change through activism and social media rather than a
brick.
"There was the assumption that black
people, Latino people, inner-city people are inherently violent, and
that's the farthest thing from the truth," says Kevin Powell, whose BK
Nation advocacy group helped organize peaceful marches involving
thousands of people in New York City.
"They
need to stop racially stereotyping people," Powell says. "It's the same
thing George Zimmerman was engaging in. To automatically assume an
explosion from the Zimmerman verdict - I don't think they understand
black people."
The talk of violence originated
long before the verdict with some conservative commentators, who said
riots should be blamed on liberals who distorted facts to make Zimmerman
look guilty. "Media's dishonest motives in Trayvon Martin case could
end in riots," read one headline on Glenn Beck's website.
Speculation
intensified when news broke that Florida police were preparing for
possible unrest. Pundits highlighted dozens of tweets from average
citizens threatening violence if Zimmerman was acquitted. Reminders
circulated about a handful of "this is for Trayvon" assaults by black
people when the case first gained national notice.
"I
fully expect organized race rioting to begin in every major city to
dwarf the Rodney King and the Martin Luther King riots," wrote former
police officer Paul Huebl. "If you live in a large city be prepared to
evacuate or put up a fight to win. You will need firearms, fire
suppression equipment along with lots of food and water."
In
the week after the verdict, amid peaceful protests involving tens of
thousands of people across the country, there was some violence.
In
Oakland, protesters broke windows, vandalized a police car and started
street fires. In Los Angeles, people splintered off two peaceful
protests to smash windows, set fires, attack pedestrians, and assault
police with rocks and bottles. About 50 teenagers took the subway to
Hollywood to rob pedestrians; 12 were arrested.
Individual
attacks were reported in Mississippi, Milwaukee and Baltimore, where
black people were accused of assaulting two white people and a Hispanic
in Martin's name.
Overall, the response to the
Zimmerman verdict was nothing like the massive 1992 Los Angeles
uprising that killed 53 people, injured more than 2,000 and caused $1
billion in damage after police officers were acquitted in the Rodney
King beating. And there was no comparison with the 1960s riots that
struck cities across the country in response to oppression of
African-Americans and the assassination of Martin Luther King.
The
`60s riots sprang from a sense of deep frustration that progress was
being thwarted, says Max Krochmal, a history professor at Texas
Christian University.
"They saw the limits to what they could achieve," Krochmal says.
President
Barack Obama, who spoke emotionally after the verdict about the
frustrations many African-Americans felt over the verdict, is a reminder
that limits have been lifted.
"In the `60s,
there was just a lot of anger with the way things were. There was a
hopelessness. When King was killed, that was the worst. It was like
killing the hope," says the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, 82, who leads The
House of the Lord Church in New York.
"Maybe the anger is not there like it was before," says Daughtry, who organized several peaceful rallies after the verdict.
He
added that Obama's statement helped keep things calm. The president
told people that "I feel pain, I've been through the same thing, I'm not
distant to the pain you feel," Daughtry says. "I've got a man in the
White House who knows that pain."
For many, social media has been a constructive outlet for that pain.
"I
definitely think that social media has helped to defuse anything that
happens out on the streets," Powell says. "Because people are able to
use their voices. They can be heard."
"Imagine if there was no Twitter and Facebook and this verdict came down," he says. "Where would people go?"
"People
are using social media to vent," Powell continues. "That's where all
the energy is being placed. It's easy - people can click a button and
say exactly what they want - like boycott Florida."
John
Baick, a history professor at Western New England University, says the
Zimmerman trial is another skirmish in the battles over the direction of
American culture.
"Use of the word `riot' is talking about race without talking about race," Baick says. "It's like, look at `them.'"
"The word riot says so much about fears, about assumptions," he says. "It's deep in our culture that we are afraid of `them.'"
