I made the following remarks at a rally today, organized by the NAACP in Portland to remember and honor Trayvon Martin but also to call all of us to action to work toward racial equality and against violence.  The work we do at the ACLU of Maine is grounded in the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  That is our mission.  But our defense of these principles impacts real people everyday -- people we love.  So the conversation around Trayvon Martin's death is not just a conversation about what the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution means or whether Congress can finally pass the End Racial Profiling Act but also a conversation about how we treat our neighbors and our friends.  So here are my remarks:

When I heard the news, I went to a place many of us go to find community – online on Facebook.  There, as I read the reactions of friends and family members, there was one status update from my friend Kate Knox that was so powerful.  Kate wrote, “I do not know if George Zimmerman is guilty - but I do know that black boys are never given the benefit of the doubt. They grow up being looked upon as scary, devious and suspicious. All I know is my exquisite black child at 20 months loving bugs, pretzels and his mama.”  My friend Kate posted this on Facebook in reference to her adorable son, Edson. 

My friend and mentor, Laura Murphy, wrote a powerful blog about how this makes her feel.  (A Mother's Rules for Being Young, Black and Male.)  She said, “I've done my best to protect my son, a young man who is 23 and about to enter law school, by teaching him to anticipate prejudice and understand that for some, his skin color is an invitation to scorn and mistreatment. But one heartbreaking lesson to take from this tragedy is that there is essentially nothing that parents can tell their Black children—especially young men—about how to survive in this world that will protect them from violence, and that must change.”

The CDC recently released statistics, publicized in the USA Today, on the numbers of black and white young men who are killed each year at the hands of another.  In 2010 there were 2.1 homicides for every 100,000 white youths.  Meanwhile, there were 28.8 homicides for every 100,000 black youths.  In other words, our nation’s black sons are almost 15 times more likely to be victims of murder than our nation’s white sons. 

Regardless of our politics and our view of the verdict, we can all share compassion for the parents of Trayvon who lost a son and the parents of black children everywhere who are statistically more likely to fall victim to violence. We can share compassion for all mothers of black children, for Kate and for Laura, who fear for their sons’ safety.

The conversation of race and the criminal justice system is not an easy one.  But we cannot afford to be colorblind.  To be colorblind as a society is dangerous, it threatens the safety of our young people. 

The mission of the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Maine, is defense of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  We believe in the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees all people equal protection under the law.  And we must act now to realize that promise, to work toward racial equality and justice for all.