Stereotypes, being prejudice and not understanding what’s going on can lead up to making mistakes

An African-American teenager—Trayvon Martin—was shot by a volunteer neighborhood watchman—George Zimmerman—on February 26^th. Zimmerman claims to have shot him for self-defense because he was wearing a dark hoodie and looked “suspicious” when the 17-year-old was just coming back from the supermarket with a pack of candy for his brother and an ice tea.

            How can prejudice lead to injustice? In this case, Zimmerman shot Martin because he looked “suspicious”; he didn’t even know for sure that he was armed. Just because he was black and wore a dark hoodie, Zimmerman took away the boy’s life. After killing for no reason, he is still not arrested and still wonders around the streets, but if he would’ve been black and killed a white boy instead, the consequences could’ve been much worse. An example would be in To Kill a Mockingbird; Scout, Jem and everyone else think that the Radley place is haunted and that Boo Radley is dangerous, but as the story goes on, Boo just turns out to be nicer than what everyone thought when he helps Jem and Scout.

            I think that, as individuals, our responsibility is to take action when you see something like that happening—we shouldn’t just stand there and watch without doing anything. If you see something that you believe is not right, stand up for you opinion and don’t just let the person doing whatever you think is wrong do it without anyone stopping him/ her. By stopping someone’s bad actions, you can make a change in the world or even just in that person’s heart.

            When people fear what they do not understand, they start doing things that they don’t really think about just for self-defense. In the case of Zimmerman, he fears that Martin is going to hurt someone and so he shoots him without thinking about it because he doesn’t really understand why an African-American boy is wondering around the streets, even though it’s not that suspicious he is scared that he would attack him and so he shoots and kills him.

            When you’ve heard bad things about a race your whole life and then you see someone that you think is up to no good, you do something that you don’t mean. This is how stereotypes affect people’s behaviors. Maybe Zimmerman had heard bad things about some African-Americans and them being dangerous and it became a stereotype which means that he thought it applied to all African-Americans. He probably thought that Martin was up to no good and without thinking; he did what came to his mind the fastest.

            Stereotypes, being prejudice and not understanding what’s going on can lead up to actions that aren’t your best choices, but that come to you before the others. Everyone makes mistakes and some of them are worse than others; some you can fix and some last forever. Zimmerman—in my opinion—should be sent to jail because Martin wasn’t attacking him or entering his property; he was just walking home from the supermarket. Zimmerman just didn’t consider the truth and went with his first impression and made a mistake that can’t be fixed.