The use of the white female virtuous victim narrative to justify genocide of Native Americans and lynching black men and boys may seem to be over. However, the Zimmerman trial gives us a striking example of the ways this justification is still in effect. Incompetence –arguably intentional– on the part of the prosecution (led by white female Angela Corey who said the case “was never about race”) did little to counter the defense’s method of calling on the virtuous victim narrative to prove their case. We’ll look here at how the white female judge, jurors, and neighbor invoked the story of white female fear, giving Zimmerman the complementary role as protector and usurping the place of the actual victim, Trayvon Martin.

Let’s start with a look at the judge:

Early decisions made by white female Judge Debra Nelson directed the course of the case by refusing to allow the term “racial profiling” or any discussions of race in the courtroom. (As if a white person killed at the hands of a black man who allegedly feared for his life would receive the same verdict) Additionally, she disallowed discussion of the “first aggressors” law, even though Zimmerman initiated the encounter. Florida’s self-defense law prohibits ‘initial aggressors’ from using force if their own conduct has provoked that force; so, if a defendant ‘initially provokes the use of force’ against himself, he cannot claim to have acted in self-defense, unless he withdraws or retreats.” Had Judge Nelson allowed racial profiling into discussion, there would have been ample grounds for discussion of Zimmerman as a first aggressor.The specific focus on the fatal final moments of the episode required the white female jurors to focus on a question likely to evoke their empathy on behalf of Zimmerman–namely, was Zimmerman legitimately afraid for his life? Notice that the question asked the jurors to put themselves in Zimmerman’s place, and to judge the legitimacy of his fear–without having to consider whether or not race (or implicit bias) might influence that judgment, or how Zimmerman himself precipitated this close encounter with Martin. Judge Nelson’s use of her vested power in framing the case thus focused on the sense of powerlessness familiar to white women in their accustomed social roles. Here, then, is the contradiction to address: white women using their social power to deny black men justice–by accepting, unexamined, the socialization that casts them as intrinsically weak.

A case could certainly be made that Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin by considering him so suspicious to be worth following. “Zimmerman told the 911 operator, ‘These fucking punks’ and ‘these assholes, they always get away,’ when he spotted Martin walking down the street in Sanford, Florida, that fateful evening. ‘Looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,’ Zimmerman said. ‘Something’s wrong with him.’ When an investigator later asked Zimmerman what he meant by those words, the shooter replied, ‘I don’t know.’”In other words, because Zimmerman was never charged with being a first aggressor, he never had to defend his decision to follow Martin. In his own words he was unable to justify what was wrong with Martin walking around in the afternoon, and yet he decided to follow Martin, with a concealed weapon, even after the 911 operator had advised him “We don’t need you to do that.”

It is deeply troubling that the question of “first aggressor” and the question of racial profiling were not included in the arguments made during the case. Surely we could have allowed the jurors to consider the full story of the events, rather than focus on the encounter between Martin and Zimmerman as if it took place out of context of the build-up to their struggle. It is also troubling to hear, in most mainstream coverage, that this case is not about race. Judge Nelson’s denial of racial profiling as relevant in the courtroom continues in a long tradition of white people failing to look at and acknowledge the alternate universe that black men in particular inhabit. Despite studies confirming the disproportionate number of black men who are pulled over for questioning, jailed for drug use, or treated suspiciously in stores or on the street, white people continue to argue that we live in a “post-racial” America. And white women, in this case as in others, continue to find themselves making decisions out of fear — a fear that is reinforced by our culture’s myth that white women are endangered victims.

Next, let’s go to the 5 white female jurors:

The final decision to acquit Zimmerman for his shooting of an innocent 17-year-old was made by a predominately white female jury. Perhaps more revealing of the virtuous victim narrative than the juror’s final verdict, however, were the combined post-trial interviews of all five white, female jurors. These overwhelmingly similar statements offer important lessons about the role of white women in validating and upholding a culture of laws that unjustly devalues the life of black men and children, while simultaneously expressing stereotypically maternal emotions of sadness for such an “unfortunate event.”

The so-called “jury of mothers” expressed “anguish” and “heavy hearts” for the family of Martin and for their role in convicting Zimmerman not guilty. Juror B37 also shared that her prayers were with “those who could modify the laws that left me with no verdict options other than ‘not guilty.’” The remaining four jurors released a similar statement expressing that Martin’s death weighed heavily on their hearts, but that they did what the law required them to do and wished for privacy and a return to their normal lives.

We do not doubt the truth of their sadness. But at the same time these statements illuminate a commonly held story about our perceived passivity and powerlessness as white women – which is the other side of the insidious coin of the white female virtuous victim narrative. An arguably less violent, but tremendously damaging aspect of the narrative serves to trap us by our self-image as victims, living in unnecessary fear with a paralyzing (though false) sense of powerlessness.

White females are socialized to believe it more appropriate to express sadness than anger, distress than outrage. Moreover, as white people, we have learned to blindly accept and, consequentially, act upon our bias and our privilege. The result in the case of Martin and Zimmerman is an expression of individual sadness towards Martin’s family and an utter failure to name a larger sense of sadness or even righteous anger at the parallels of  Martin’s murder to the killing of black people by police officers or vigilantes that happens every 28 hours.

While the jurors claim to have had their hands tied about the range of choices available to them, they were free to act on their conscience. They would not be killed, and likely not imprisoned for standing up to the judge’s ridiculous assertion that race can be left outside of the courtroom. Instead, even after the trial was over the jurors played right into this sacred narrative, and announced themselves as victims. Their response was not anger at the dis-empowered position they had been placed in, or recognition that racial profiling prevents black mothers from moving on from this case the way the jurors themselves aimed to.

And finally, let’s look at the neighbor:                                     

Zimmerman’s former neighbor, a white woman, testified about a break-in of her house by two young black men which had led her to move out of the neighborhood: “I was locked in my son’s bedroom and he was shaking the door knob trying to get in. I was sitting there with a pair of rusty scissors and my son in my arms.” In the closing arguments of the case, the defense played on the sympathy they suspected a predominantly white female jury would have for the white female crime victim. The neighbor became a key element of the closing arguments, making clear that the make-up of the jury was critical to the defense. The defense showed the jury a picture of the neighbor in order to highlight the role Zimmerman was playing, as protector of a frightened white woman who had been victimized by black men. Then they showed the jury a picture of Trayvon Martin without his shirt on, and argued that the jury should pay attention to the strength–thus threat– he was capable of. As Mychal Denzel Smith of The Nation pointed out, the defense team “literally invoked the same justification for the killing of Trayvon Martin that you would during lynching,” that “George Zimmerman was protecting, not just himself , but white womanhood from this vicious, black thug.” In short: white women are afraid. This black man is strong and causes a threat.

The judge’s dismissal of race in order to focus on a scenario in which a black male allegedly imperils a white life, the disempowered dismay reflected in the juror comments as they spoke of their decision on the case, and the fact that the picture of a white female former resident of the neighborhood was considered to be relevant even as Martin’s friend’s testimony was not considered credible because “of her education,” are all examples of white women making important life-altering decisions, from a deeply embedded racism enabled by a distorted sense of powerlessness and lack of responsibility.

The current narrative of white women as victims and black men in particular as aggressors ultimately serves to divide and conquer, making enemies of two potential allies in the critique of white patriarchy, and thus benefitting those who remain in power. Only our rejection of the myth that we are victims in need of saving will allow us to fully claim the power available to us as we wrestle with the interdependent systems of white supremacy and patriarchy. Claiming this power can free us to be actors for change, rather than victims of a system that uses us to perpetuate inequality and violence.