Trayvon was a suicide.

Before I begin, go read this excellent, no-holds-barred analysis from Mr. Denninger.  I'll wait.



This is why I consider his death to be the fault of Trayvon Martin alone. 

Actions have consequences.  The path you choose to follow will lead you somewhere, and you ought to take a good look at the destination you're approaching.  You want to be baaaaad?  You think it's cool being all gangsta, livin' that Thug Life?

This is where it leads you.  Either a prison cell or an early grave.  That's the end of your road if you don't wake up and take an exit.  Period.

Thuggery in all of its forms, including swagger, display of or acquisition of weapons, fighting skills, gang signs or membership and similar are not markers that get put down and demand "respect."  At best they might earn you fear, but this is exactly the opposite of what you want because justified fear of one's life is the gateway through which the right to legally use lethal force upon you travels.

IF you, through your own actions, place that justified fear into another person and are assaulting them they have the right to stop your assault using lethal force.  And if that happens as a consequence of your actions and you die then it is justifiable homicide and you will be the one who is dead as the direct and proximate consequence of your actions.

This is not about "stereotypes" or "mistaken assumptions."  It is about a culture that condones and glorifies violence, a "thug culture" that comes with swagger, baggy pants that have their waistline below the top of one's nutsack, the acquisition of weapons and fighting skills for offensive display and a mistaken belief that "street cred" will get you anywhere other than into a combat situation where you're 50/50 to wind up in a pine box.  That's crap from top to bottom but it's the "culture" that Trayvon Martin willingly took upon himself, it led to what happened in Sanford and all of it is on Trayvon Martin and the people he associated with.

You want "respect?"  First you need to know what "respect" really means.   It's not fear.  It's not deference.  It's not how much ass you can kick and how much ass you can get. 

It's what you earn when you behave, for example, like young Temar Boggs.

He was not "No Limit Nigga" nor did he display anything of the sort in his actions.  He did not seek to demand "street cred", he did not swagger, he did not furtively walk in the shadows in a rainstorm and he did not confront someone who asked him "what 'ya doing?" when he appeared to be in a place and at a time that made no sense given the totality of the circumstances.  No, he used his bicycle to chase a man in a car who had abducted a child.  He confronted evil instead of acting in a furtive and deceptive manner.  He did not hide in shadows or swing at someone who asked him a question, he gave chase to a probable felon who, confronted with the potential defense of the life and well-being of the child he was holding in his car released her and sped off.

If you think that every little slight--real or imagined--must be answered with violence, you are not a man, you are a little boy trying to be a man.  And failing.

If you've honestly deluded yourself into believing you can simply attack people at random without eventually suffering dire consequences, then you are simply not living in reality.

And if you go looking for trouble on a regular basis, eventually, you are going to find more than you bargained for.

And that, when all is said and done, is your fault.

Trayvon Martin, by his enthusiastic embrace of an obviously detrimental, evil and ultimately suicidal excuse for a 'culture,' killed himself.  He just used an innocent man's gun to do it.  We can only hope that, in the last few seconds of his life, he realized what an absolute mess he'd made of it, and made his peace with the Lord our God.

Suicide by Citizen.  That's the way I see it.