"What if" is a stupid game. No one knows what would have happened if he had been white. Maybe if he had been white he wouldn't have been living in the ghetto. Maybe if he had been white he would have went home instead of standing around white Zimmerman used the phone in his car. If he had been white this wouldn't have made national news.
If Trayvon had been white maybe his parents would be divorced because the mother had a baby of a different race than the father. We can play this "What if" game all day and half the night but it would not make any difference. Is the mother saying that if her son had been white he would have been a better person? Is the father saying that if his son had been white he would have won the fight?
We can't deal in "What if's" What if I had not hurt my arm in high school could I have been in the major leagues? If I had been taller, or better looking, or had not got drafted during Vietnam or... I did hurt my arm, I am not tall, and I look like what I look like, and I did get drafted. What if doesn't matter.
I know. People play this game all the time. "What if I had not been late to work on that fateful day of Sept 11. We cannot live by what if. We have to live in the real world and deal with the decisions we make and the hand that life has dealt us. We were not born 100 years ago, a different race, or in a different place, or with a different face. What if Ted Bundy's mother had told him the truth and not claimed to be his sister? "What if" makes for good TV (Quantum Leap, anyone?) but it isn't real. We can only play the "What if" game before something happens. Maybe if we did we would make far better decisions.
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