Just a couple of thoughts here. One, there are no winners in this case. GZ didn't win, he must live with the fact that wheither provoked or not, he took the life of a 17 year old, but on the flip side, TM was not a poster child hero either with a history of drug use and violence.
The American justice system relies on presumed innocense. The full weight and burden of proof is on the prosectution to prove guilt.
The media at large needs to take a look at the mirror. While sensationalism sells, it often misrepresents the facts. Freedom of press is an important right and is fundamental to freedom; however, that right can be misused and is. Rather than reporting facts and truth which inform and enlighten, media sensationalism hinders truth and legal proceedings and entertains. Entertainment is not the primary function of the press.
We need to have honest and open discussion in regards to racial relations, and I'm not talking about blame the white man stuff. I'm talking lay everything out on the table. Not every crime committed against someone of a different race by someone of another race is racist, other motives are greed and power.
But we also need to discuss, what drives racism? The black community needs to discuss what things are giving their race a bad image. In my community, people with darker skin tone tend to crank up loud profaine misogynistic music in their cars. They tend to be loud and intimidating, for example, one time I was driving past a neighborhood where my bride used to live, she was pointing out a house where a friend used to live. There was this guy there with darker skin color on the porch who began to yell at us. Then there's the gang stuff and the pants on the ground stuff. This is not doing the black community any favors.
Now are all black people loud and threatening? No, I have several good friends who are black. And I happen to like rap music, I just don't like listening to filth.
We all have to look at ourselves and ask, how are we adding to the problem no matter what your skin color is. We all need to focus on the things that make us united, rather than the things that divide.