We have seen from photos and tweets that Trayvon had started to embrace the thug mindset. He could have rejected it. He didn't.
So he was on the path to the very lifestyle choices that give whites (and many blacks, as the Jesse Jackson quote clearly indicates) good reason to be fearful of an unknown black walking down a sidewalk with a thuggish demeanor.
So I don't see unfair weight on Trayvon. I have known blacks who act and dress like the middle-class professionals they are and they still draw attention from the cops for simply being out in public. I have seen it myself happen to them. And it sucks. But those are the men who are truly bearing the unfair weight of the likes of those like Trayvon who embrace the thug culture - and worse, those who act it out at the expense of society in general.
If a-holes like Al Sharpton spent more time promoting what Juan Williams and Bill Cosby are saying to blacks, and less time condemning those men, maybe, just maybe, Trayvon would have had a mentoring influence to do well in school and stay away from bad influences. Instead, any such man often suffers attacks from other blacks for acting white. The die for this situation has been cast by decades of so-called black leaders refusing to accept a collective responsibility for the sad state of urban blacks, and instead continuing to blame white America for those failures.
You make a statement when you decide what to wear and how to act.
If you choose to dress and act like a criminal, because that is “cool” or “authentically black,” I fail to see why other people should not judge you accordingly.
I first became aware of this back in the late 60s. All the hippies were yakking about how unfair it was for them to be judged based on their hairstyle and attire.
The problem is that this hairstyle and attire was the rough equivalent of carrying a sign aimed at “squaresville Americans.” The sign said “I hate and despise everything you believe in and hold sacred.”
It seemed perfectly logical to me for squares to react appropriately to such a sign.