It’s all about Fear.
I’m of the belief that fear is the opposite of creativity. Fear leans towards the darkness in our souls. Creativity leans towards the light. Creativity is high order thinking, fear is not thinking, it’s letting our lizard brain dictate our action.
Fear is the hidden truth in what happened with the Zimmerman sentence and the Martin murder. Some would question, now, my use of the word murder when Zimmerman has been acquitted. I’m sorry, but George is responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. He put himself in that position, he fired the weapon, in my view he’s responsible. George Zimmerman was operating from a fundamental place of fear. He could have chose differently.
Fear is why this tragic event happened. Fear is what has a man carrying a gun, then following and confronting a young black man. Fear is what has the young man react. Fear is what causes beatings, fear is what causes triggers to be pulled.
Whatever might be said about the legal system, and rights to self-defence, this tragedy would not have happened at all without the broad context of fear. Fear of others is why a community is gated, and, fear has a great deal to do with the formation of a citizen watch group. And fear is why, in my view, George Zimmerman didn’t simply let Trayvon pass by, and let the police do their job. I don’t know if there was hate in George Zimmerman’s heart, there might have been. I do know there was fear in his heart and it influenced his actions.
Creativity is solving complex problems. There are creative and safe solutions to community security. Fear stopped the community from exploring those alternatives. And it’s bigger than that Florida community, they are simply the unlucky ones to have had this incident occur in their front yard. Racism, in very subtle forms, runs under American society. It’s in everybody’s front yard, and until that context is changed, murders, resulting from our fears, will happen.
Racism is fear by another name. The problem is not the legal system (although there are problems with a legal system that allows such a narrow question to be considered), the problem is the fear we have with each other. When we learn to limit fear, even remove it altogether — and that’s on both sides of the racial fence — we will have less of these tragedies. Then, we won’t have an invisible racial fence.
How to we get over being afraid? Confront it. Meet “the others.” Get to know them, really know them. There are safe ways to do this. We need to reach over the fear fence and create communities. Communities that look out for the safety of all children and young people. This is creativity in action, this is walking towards the light.
Maybe today is a good day to start.