A few days after I heard that word -- "acquitted" -- I passed a black youth on the street. I wondered what it would be like to be his mother instead of the mother of my own white son. Did she worry whether he would make it home that night? Did she consider telling him that he shouldn't run if the police approached him, or walk too slowly if he was being followed, or wear a hoodie? Did she want to say, "Don't be brave, just get out of there" if trouble brewed.
I worried for him too, in a way I never had before. I felt (as much as possible) the insidious burden of blackness. I was connected to his mom as one mother, one woman, to another. I wondered if George Zimmerman, Mr. Spooner, their lawyers and loyal supporters would ever be capable of such empathy.
That's when I experienced the utter fatigue that civil rights leaders must be feeling now.
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