Much has been said about the Zimmerman/Martin case. Much will be said for many years to come. The basics of the case, when you strip away all the superfluous stuff, are these:

• Zimmerman lived in a neighborhood where there had been a rash of home burglaries.
• Zimmerman saw someone acting in a suspicious manner near the homes that had been burglarized.
• Zimmerman called the police, and followed the suspicious person in order to tell the police where he went (I did this with someone I suspected of driving drunk once).
• Martin initiated the physical confrontation by punching Zimmerman in the nose.
• Martin then continued to physically assault Zimmerman by pounding Zimmerman’s head into the pavement (do a quick internet search for “contrecoup”)
• While being assaulted, Zimmerman drew his gun and shot Martin once, killing him.

Those are the facts that have been established. Now we get to the racism opinions.

I don’t believe Zimmerman is a racist. This article does not paint the picture of a man with hatred in his heart for people with black skin color. There is also the fact that Zimmerman has been described as a “white man.” From what I have been able to learn, his father is “white,” his mother is Hispanic, and his mother’s grandfather was black. He is just as much of a white man as Barack Obama.

Obama’s Parents: one white, one black.

Zimmerman’s Parents: one white, one Hispanic.

That being said, racism should not be a factor in this case, except for the comments made by Martin about Zimmerman. “Cracker” is just as much of an ethnic slur as the “n-word.”

I have heard people wonder, “What would have happened if Zimmerman had not been armed?” None of us will ever know, but I would hazard a guess that Martin would have continued to pummel Zimmerman, and we would be talking about the conclusion of the Martin trial where Martin had just been found guilty of 2nd degree murder of one George Zimmerman.

And my guess is that there would be no riots or protesting if Zimmerman had been found guilty this past Saturday. What does that say? To those of you who are outraged about the “racism-based slaying of Trayvon”: before you accuse Zimmerman or the six jurors of racism, ask yourself this question: would you be as up in arms about this case if Martin were white? If your level of outrage would be different, then you, my friend, are racist.

EDIT:  Here’s another article, which, unbelievably for Slate.com, is incredibly factual and to the point.