The shooting death of Trayvon Martin once again makes clear a serious problem relating to race in America. It is a problem that will victimize more young people of color until we address it honestly. Too many people in America are burdened with a presumption of guilt. Their race, their ethnicity, their religion, their nationality, and sometimes their poverty is seen as an indicator of danger, a basis for distrust or suspicion that marks them as someone to be feared, someone to be closely monitored.
The presumption of guilt generates suspicion, staring, distrustful glances when you are in a store, in an airport, or in a neighborhood that is not your own. Many Americans have been coping with this burden for generations.
Being presumed guilty is frustrating, burdensome, and exhausting. In the criminal justice system it can also be dangerous and life threatening. When police, prosecutors or judges presume someone's guilt, lives are destroyed, and horrific injustices take place. There needs to be a conversation about this problem in the United States.
