I’m not writing about my main reactions to the verdict because I have nothing new to say about them. If it’s too soon for an intellectual reaction, don’t read this.
Zooming in and out can change a narrative by highlighting certain facts and putting others in the background or off the screen entirely. What George Zimmerman’s lawyer did, like Rodney King’s assailants’ lawyer, was change the zoom level. The focus was on the moment when teenaged Trayvon Martin was on top of George Zimmerman, a tight closeup on Zimmerman’s banged-up head and face. In that frame, it looked like shooting Martin was justified. How Martin and Zimmerman got to that point was left offscreen. Similarly, slow-motion replays of Rodney King trying to get up and thereby justifying the police’s use of force tightly framed the narrative as an interplay between a suspect’s refusal to lie still and the police response. This led to their acquittal.
Zoom out a little and it looks like an armed man followed an unarmed teenager and killed him. Zoom out a little further, and it looks like a race-motivated armed property owner followed and killed a black male. Who knows what he said to get Trayvon Martin so angry or frightened?
Many people, especially black people and others who identify with them, simply don’t believe that the jury weighed the relevant evidence and not the races of the parties. Or, if they did, and it’s the shooter’s subjective experience of fear that justifies an escalation to deadly force, then the case stands for a license to shoot people that make you nervous. Since many black people make many white people nervous, the verdict seems to be a license to shoot black people in Florida.
Suppose that Trayvon really did sit on Zimmerman’s chest, provoked somehow into banging Zimmerman’s head on the pavement. Suppose the cries for help really did come from Zimmerman. How is this different from the cops beating Rodney King? The white jury in that case was told, and believed, that King controlled the cops by refusing to lie still. Every movement of King’s justified the cops’ continued beating of him. Why doesn’t Trayvon get a free pass for beating a man who wouldn’t shut up and lie still?
Well, the answer of course is that Zimmerman is white (looks white, which is the exact same thing), while Trayvon looks black. But keeping the zoom at a level that includes only Zimmerman’s thoughts and feelings at the moment he drew his weapon ignores all that.
So if you zoom in to the same level used in the Rodney King defense, Zimmerman is responsible for whatever beating he received, as Rodney King was found to be. And if you zoom out to the level of common sense (armed white guy provokes a confrontation with an unarmed black teenager and kills him), Zimmerman is guilty. The prosecutors didn’t do as good a job as Zimmerman’s lawyer of controlling the zoom level.
Michael Karson, Ph.D. 
I’m not saying you shouldn’t write about this topic – the topic is fair game in the discourse that has been ongoing, ie. protests, presidential press remarks, etc. However, I think that society’s zooming in on court cases like this are attempts to take out of focus larger issues – on race and otherwise. The focus seems to only serve people who make money off creating division among the population.
I also wouldn’t agree with your statement that ” Zoom out a little further, and it looks like a race-motivated armed property owner followed and killed a black male. Who knows what he said to get Trayvon Martin so angry or frightened?” While not stated, it implies a certain amount of premeditation by Zimmerman that was not proven in court. I also believe that the legal threshold isn’t “nervous,” but feeling a threat for your life (ie. self defense), and the law provides specificity in guilt when someone is shot.
I think that we can be upset that racism raises the level of danger for certain groups in America and realize that the legal resolution of this case was just and the correct conclusion based on the evidence at hand.
Also, with a little gallows humor, it says quite a bit about either the prosecution or the evidence that the jury found Zimmerman not guilty after his lawyer’s appalling opening statements. Beginning a murder trial with a knock-knock joke is filed under too stupid for words.