Another Warrant for Profound Doubt
It is irrational to think the first-degree murder trial of
Michael Dunn is merely another episode in a “STAND YOUR GROUND” reality
series. The subject matter of the trial
is too painfully vile to be dismissed as just an accidental probability in what
we shall be obligated eventually to call “global death-planning.” Once the trial is concluded, regardless of
the verdict, we shall have to locate it in relation to violence (especially
male on male violence) as a primal American virtue. American virtues, of course, are
universal. Ultimately, we shall find
ourselves locating or mapping the negative fourth-dimensionality of the
twenty-first century. Despite the
juridical necessity to avoid contempt for Florida law, the distorting filters
of mass media and social networks sharpen our intuitions about Dunn’s intent
from angles of critical race theory. The
trial of Michael Dunn serves as yet another warrant for profound doubt about
the efficacy of American justice. Like
the trial and exoneration of George Zimmerman, the Dunn trial tempts us to
inscribe permanent disdain for theories of justice as they manifest themselves
in the worlds we inhabit.
Our ground for such disdain is predicated on a “reasonable
inference rule” and on unambiguous historical evidence of white male
recuperation of a bogus entitlement to murder non-white males. It is on this ground that I stand and remark
that we have a capital insult to intelligence in the fact that Mark O’Mara,
George Zimmerman’s defense attorney, should provide expert analysis of the Dunn
trial. If the construct of justice were
more than a figment of legal theory, O’Mara would have the professional decency
to recuse himself. But decency is rare in the public sphere.
From an unchartered sector of consciousness, I hear the
ghost screams of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin and twenty plus victims of the
Atlanta Child Murders which occurred between 1979 and 1981. It is the bane of
long memory that a few of us are condemned to hear in the unfinished song of
crime and punishment in the United States, in the unfinished ancient opera of
global violence. I have begun to think that the blatant acts of Michael Dunn,
George Zimmerman, and other males who perform under the color of standing
ground belong to the devil’s cut in the Book of Job.
It seems to be something other than a coincidence that Dunn’s
trial unfolds during Black History Month. From the vantage of legal narrative,
it seems to be a kind of anthropological reality-testing and rejection of myths
of American progress authored by the State of Florida. Common African American sense bids me to
leave conclusions to a future where truth might be verified without prejudice. But my male humanity tempts me to imagine
that a few good men might join Nathaniel Turner and his comrades in sending a
message to give eyesight to the color- and otherwise-blind citizens of our troubled
and troubling nation. I hasten to assure the National Security Agency that my dream
of revenge is an act of fiction.
Jerry W. Ward,
Jr. February 10, 2014
