-- Some spoilers herein -- 

My daughter's teacher told me of some books she's been reading to my daughter's class this year -- Among the Hidden and Among the Impostors from the "Shadow Children" series by Margaret Peterson Haddix.  The stories are dystopian futures for youth readers, not unlike The Hunger Games or  Divergent, but for a slightly younger audience.  In Haddix's Shadow Children books, third children are illegal in this post-famine totalitarian state.  The first two books follow the story of Luke, a third child.  In the first book, he's in hiding in his family home.  In the second, he's at a school under a fake ID. 

What struck me, when reading these books, is that the main character, Luke, fails to act.  Unlike many science fiction and fantasy books where the main character becomes the central character in the struggle for justice or freedom, Luke, at least in these two books, does not.  In the first book, he's invited by his friend Jen to join in a rally for freedom and rights for third children.  Luke is afraid, and does not go.  In the second book, children are banding together, sharing their real names and starting to organize for another stand for justice.  Luke hangs back, and doesn't admit to also being a third child.  I haven't read all the books, and it's possible he becomes more of a leader in future books, but in the first two he's not even a follower -- he stands out of the action entirely in the first book, and in the second only really acts when attacked, and then in self-preservation, not in a call for more justice.

How strange, I thought, to read the story of someone who doesn't take up the fight, who waits it out in fear.  It's a story of how many, even most, of us react in times of fear and persecution.  But it's not usually the subject of a novel, which usually focuses in on the savior character -- the Ender, the Katniss, the Luke Skywalker hero figure. 

The world relies on the Jens to get out there and make a stand and lead the rally, but the world is full of Lukes, who hang back out of fear, and protect themselves.  And that's okay, especially for children, and especially for those for whom it is most dangerous to speak out. 

As a faith leader, I think often about what stands I'm willing to fight for, and to what extent.  There are ministers in our movement who were arrested in Phoenix for a stand they took against immigration policies and the inhumane "Tent City" there.  With a young child at home, I'm not anxious to risk imprisonment, although I respect greatly those who are. 

In other ways, perhaps I risk a great deal, putting my name out there in the media on controversial issues.  And maybe I'm only willing to do that when I disregard the risk as minimal.  There is violence that happens along and along against liberals who take public stands, but so far I've never encountered any.

The cause of justice has a lot of room for a lot of different levels of action.  Not everyone needs to be Martin Luther King, Jr.  There are a lot of degrees of action one can take.  I've appreciated in some protests I've been at, that there's been material distributed that essentially asked people to go different places and do different actions based on how willing they were to be in the front line, and how willing to be arrested.  Sometimes there are different roles prescribed for faith leaders, and sometimes separate areas for those willing and prepared to speak to the media.  There are different roles that are helpful and available in social action -- we need people to write letters, and we need people to talk to the media, and we need people to network with friends, and we need people to sometimes risk arrest and retribution. 

I suspect that by book four, Luke will be much more involved in actively fighting for the rights for third children, but so far I've enjoyed the story of one who hung back from action, who watched it from the sidelines.  Sometimes it's okay to stand in the shadows, too. 

**SPOILER WARNING**

This is what is on my mind this morning, as I come back from a weekend where I went out to the movies twice, once to see Catching Fire and once to see the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special.  There's a common thread that runs through both the recent Doctor Who seasons and the Hunger Games trilogy, and that is the effects of war on the survivors and the ethical struggles before and after making a decision to kill innocents in order to end a war.

It's not really in Catching Fire that this question occurs; it's actually in the next book, Mockingjay.  In it, there are two parts that I'm thinking of -- first, there's the decision by District 13 to bomb children and aid workers to advance the rage against the Capitol.  Here's the description of when Katniss learns about the weapons that will eventually be used in that way:

This is what they’ve been doing. Taking the fundamental ideas behind Gale’s traps and adapting them into weapons against humans. Bombs mostly. It’s less about the mechanics of the traps than the psychology behind them. Booby-trapping an area that provides something essential to survival. A water or food supply. Frightening prey so that a large number flee into a greater destruction. Endangering off-spring in order to draw in the actual desired target, the parent. Luring the victim into what appears to be a safe haven— where death awaits it. At some point, Gale and Beetee left the wilderness behind and focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well. (Kindle Locations 2381-2387)

Gale and Beetee are contemplating something unthinkable to Katniss:  large-scale killing of innocent people in order to get at a few desired targets.  And then, there's the question posed to Katniss and the other surviving victors by Coin near the end.  President Coin says:

"In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenship. However, in the interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this....  What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power.” (Locations 4675-4682)

Coin presents these options as if they are the only choices -- mass killing of all Capitol citizens, or a Hunger Games, killing innocent children to satisfy those whose rage calls for complete annihilation.

Katniss is not the person really making these decisions, despite the illusion that the victors get to decide between two false choices, but she is haunted by the decisions she has had to make, and haunted by the knowledge that people she knew and cared for have been involved in these decisions.  It is President Coin who made the decision to kill innocents to stop the war sooner, and to give into the two evil choices of mass annihilation or hunger games to satisfy political unrest after the war has ended.  We don't see in Coin any regret, any awareness of the level of evil.  We only get that through Katniss, who has willingly been her Mockingjay.

In Doctor Who, the Doctor has been haunted for the last several seasons by the decision he made to destroy his home planet of Gallifrey in order to end the Time War.  We haven't known a lot of details about this until recently, and whether or not he thought he made the right decision, only that the decision left him in a world of regret and sorrow.  In the 50th anniversary special, we get to hear him say for the first time that he has counted the number of children he killed, and that his decision was wrong.  Fortunately for a Time Lord, he is able to undo, or, rather, not do that decision.  He makes another choice, and Gallifrey falls no more.  It doesn't erase his centuries of sorrow at what he thought he had done, but it changes the final outcome.

In the real world, we don't get to stop time and go back and put Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a pocket universe to protect them.  The Pequot Massacre isn't averted by our sending an arrow through Captain John Mason at the last moment.  Science fiction often lets us off the hook about feeling the full weight of the horror -- our heroes, eventually, make the right choice.  But what science fiction also is letting us do is know that there is a number to be counted for the degree of comfort and safety we hold.  Were we as good as the Doctor, we would hold that number in our heart and know it, and know the decision was wrong.  Of course, were we as good as the Doctor, we wouldn't actually have pushed that button after all. 

I want our world to be more like the Doctor and less like Coin.  But I fear that the opposite is true and our world is much more like the District 13 or even the Capitol, which in the end seem much alike.

It's a sad message I'm taking into Thanksgiving this year.  But after a Sunday of sharing the pulpit with a local Native American friend, talking about the truth and myth of Thanksgiving, this is where I'm at.  Ultimately, I conclude where I did on Sunday, that what I, at least, am feeling now is the need for the holiday time this year not to be so much about giving thanks as truth-telling.  Thanksgiving is becoming, for me, less of a Passover story of exodus, and more of a Yom Kippur, a day of atonement. 

I was once a big Orson Scott Card fan.  The number of Orson Scott Card books I own may still outnumber any single other author on the dozens of bookshelves in my home.  I read his works voraciously in college and in my early 20s.  I read the Ender saga, the Alvin Maker series, the Homecoing Saga, and assorted other books and short stories of his.  I recently re-read Ender's Game and still enjoyed it.  At some point in reading his books, however, I suddenly stopped, because I felt like I was reading the same story over and over again -- the same boy messiah saving the human race -- and I disagreed with the theology underpinning it.  But I enjoyed all those stories of his up until that time.  I still do, when I read them.  I recently re-read Ender's Game and found myself wanting to read them all over again, or start reading the later books in the series that I never read, or the Shadow Saga.

But between the time I was the big Orson Scott Card fan and now, I learned a lot about Orson Scott Card's politics, politics I find much more dangerous and objectionable that the issue of his messiah figures.  Orson Scott Card has been very outspoken against same-sex marriage and LGBT people in general, as well as saying some really negative things about President Obama, comparing him to Hitler.  Card was on the board of an organization devoted to opposing same-sex marriage in California. In an op-ed he wrote:

What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

So now Ender's Game is a movie, opening this week, and the old Orson Scott Card fan in me really wants to see it, and the activist in me wants to boycott it.  And there are people calling for a boycott. 

As I read the arguments against boycott from LGBT-friendly sources, I find many of them full of fallacies.  For example, one writer says:

But I have decided I will go see it in the spirit in which I still read Dickens and Shakespeare, dig into Norse mythology, listen to Wagner.

 The problem with this argument is that Wagner isn't currently able to help promote Nazism by our listening to him now.  Orson Scott Card, however, is still actively campaigning.  Another argument states:

In a world where ethical consumerism is sometimes the best way to get our point across, art is a murky zone. Did you watch Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, or perhaps the queer film Bitter Moon, by director Roman Polanski, the man who raped a 13-year-old? From Mel Gibson, whose hideous anti-Semitic and sexist diatribes are now legendary, to Chris Brown, Cee-Lo Green, O.J. Simpson, Charlie Sheen, Axl Rose, Alec Baldwin, Donna Summer, 50 Cent, Amanda Bynes, and many more, people have committed crimes that range from uttering slurs to rape, battery, and murder.

 Well, actually I've avoided giving any money to Roman Polanski by not seeing any of his films in the theater.  And once I learned of Mel Gibson's anti-semitism I've avoided seeing him in the theater.  Basically, when an artist starts promoting hate, I do try to avoid paying money for that artist's works. 

The best argument for seeing Ender's Game is the argument put forward by the filmmakers and Harrison Ford that says their film is made by a lot of pro-LGBT people and has pro-LGBT themes, and they're going to do a benefit for the LGBT community.  Furthermore, some are saying that no money is going to Orson Scott Card directly from the film, as he sold the rights years ago. 

But a successful Ender's Game does benefit Orson Scott Card, as it will encourage the film industry to make more of his books, particularly those in the Ender Saga, into films.  And Card will make money from those films, as well.  There's just no way that a successful Ender's Game would not be a positive for Orson Scott Card's bottom line.

However, I'm sympathetic to the outreach of Lionsgate to the LGBT community and the way they're distancing the film from Card's views.  And that prompts me to offer a compromise to myself: If I go see Ender's Game, then I will give the amount of my ticket price directly to an organization working for same-sex marriage or liberal politics to offset the gain in Card's pocket, much like offsetting a carbon footprint.  The question, then, however, is whether I continue to do so for any future Card movies, since I arguably contributed to the success that made those films possible, and I would have to say yes.  My hope, however, is by the time another movie got made, we will have won this fight.

So that's my solution for now, although I haven't tossed it past my husband yet, who is also leaning towards an Ender boycott.  Let me know what you all think out there.  How are you handling the question of Ender's Game, if it's a work you, too, enjoyed in the past?

I had a great time at SUUSI this year leading a workshop on Science Fiction and Fantasy and Religion.  One favorite part of the class was the great reading/viewing list we generated.  I hesitate to some degree to share it with those who weren't part of the class.  On the other hand, it's such a great list of works that others may find engaging.  Please be mindful that this is partly a result of where our particular conversation wandered.  The categories that are short are usually so because they are categories we didn't get to, so they just have my starter items in them.  And yes, there are a couple of things slipped in there that you might not consider SF/Fantasy, but which were a part of our discussion.


The Nature of God

Avatar (Film)
The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
Contact – Carl Sagan
Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
Stargate SG-1 and Other Stargate Series and Film (TV Series and Film)
Deathbird Stories – Harlan Ellison
Doctor Who (TV Series)
A Fire Upon the Deep – Vernor Vinge
Various Works - Charles DeLint
The God Engines – John Scalzi

Creation

2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clark
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
The Narnia Series – C.S. Lewis
Calculating God – Russell J. Sawyer
Various Works - Charles DeLint

Messiahs and Prophets Real and False (The Chosen One)


Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling
Dark Tower Series – Stephen King
The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series)
The Hero’s Journey – Joseph Campbell
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Grimm (TV Series)
The Black Cauldron and The Chronicles of Prydain Series- Lloyd Alexander
Heroes (TV Series)

Good and Evil (The Force)

Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling
The Wrinkle in Time Series – Madeleine L’Engle
Star Wars Series (Film)
The Golden Compass and the His Dark Materials Series– Philip Pullman
The Matrix Series (Film)
Doctor Who (TV Series)
The Lord of the Rings Series and other works – J.R.R. Tolkein
Various Works – Terry Brooks
Various Works – Terry Goodkind
The Black Cauldron and The Chronicles of Prydain Series- Lloyd Alexander
The Wheel of Time Series – Robert Jordan
Grimm (TV Series)
Stargate SG-1 and Other Stargate Series and Film (TV Series and Film)
Once Upon a Time (TV Series)
Farscape (TV Series)
Goblins (Web Comic)
Dungeons and Dragons (Role Playing Game and Books)
Steel Rose – Kara Dalkey
So You Want to Be a Wizard – Diane Duane
Person of Interest (TV Series)
Dexter (TV Series)

Lilith

True Blood (TV Series) and Sookie Stackhouse series – Charlaine Harris
Lilith’s Brood Series – Octavia Butler
The Narnia Series – C.S. Lewis

Belief & Faith

Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
Contact – Carl Sagan
The Matrix Series (Film)

Afterlife

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series)
Battlestar Galactica (TV Series)
The Narnia Series – C.S. Lewis
Riverworld Series – Philip José Farmer

Apocalypse (Dystopia)

The Matrix Series (Film)
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
Always Coming Home – Ursula K. LeGuin

Ethics (The Prime Directive)

I, Robot & Various Works – Isaac Asimov
The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents – Octavia Butler
Babylon 5 (TV Series)
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
Stargate SG-1 and Other Stargate Series and Film (TV Series and Film)
Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clark
Time Machine – H.G. Wells
With Folded Hands – Jack Williamson
Wall-E (Film)
World War Z – Max Brooks
Warm Bodies (Film)
1984 – George Orwell
Shaun of the Dead (Film)
We – Eugene Zamiatin
The Sparrow and Children of God – Maria Doria Russell
Anthony York, Immortal –Andre Norton

Free Will and Fate (Time Travel and Prophecy)

The Matrix Series (Film)
1984 – George Orwell
Gattaca (Film)
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
12 Monkeys (Film)
Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clark
Doctor Who (TV Series)
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
11/22/63 – Stephen King
Groundhog Day (Film)
Lost (TV Series)

Post-911 Themes and Just War

Battlestar Galactica (TV Series)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling
Enterprise (TV Series)
Doctor Who (TV Series)
Ender’s Game, Xenocide, and Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
Little Brother – Cory Doctorow

Social Justice

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Avatar (Film)
Planet of the Apes (Film)
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV Series)
Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
The Maze Runner – James Dashner
Torchwood (TV Series)
The Gate to Women’s Country – Sheri S. Tepper
Various Works - Mercedes Lackey

Agency of Children

A Fistful of Sky – Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
Babylon 5 (TV Series)
Doctor Who (TV Series)
Torchwood (TV Series)
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Various Works - Patricia C. Wrede
Various Works - Mercedes Lackey

Mind, Self, and Soul (Do Androids Dream)

The Golden Compass and the His Dark Materials Series– Philip Pullman
Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling
I, Robot & Various Works – Isaac Asimov
The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Bladerunner (Film) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Battlestar Galactica (TV Series)

Humanism

Star Trek (TV Series and Films)
Doctor Who (TV Series)

Inherent Worth and Dignity

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
Star Wars Series (Film)
Gattaca (Film)

Interdependence
Avatar (Film)
The Word for World is Forest – Ursula K. LeGuin
Ender’s Game, Xenocide, and Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card
Pern Series and Petaybee Series – Anne McCaffrey
Lost (TV Series)
Day After Tomorrow (Film)
Revolution (TV Series)
Waterworld (Film)
The Postman (Film) and The Postman – David Brin
Book of Eli (Film)
Various Works - Mercedes Lackey

Some Additional Works with Religious Themes Mentioned in Class

American Gods and Sandman Series - Neil Gaiman
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. LeGuin
A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
Various Works - Philip Jose Farmer
Various Works - Arthur C. Clark
The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. LeGuin
Various Works - Anne McCaffrey
The Darkover Series – Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Vorkosigan Saga and Various Works – Lois McMaster Bujold
The Dazzle of Day – Molly Glass
Twilight Zone and Various Works – Rod Serling
Various Works - Stanislaw Lem
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Tales of Alvin Maker Series – Orson Scott Card

I spent last week at the minister's study group, Ohio River Group, that I attend each year (I've missed only once since joining in 2005).  This year's theme was "Space," and during our meeting a growing list of science fiction suggestions was posted by its members on the white board.  What follows here is that list, with my own personal notations when I have any.  For confidentiality's sake, I am not posting either who posted these works, nor some of their own comments about why that went up on our white board.

Robert Sawyer: Starplex, Calculating God, Factoring Humanity, and Flashforward
Of the things on this list that I haven't read, these will be first on my list.

Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake: A Novel, and The Year of the Flood
I've read some of Atwood's works (including The Handmaid's Tale, of course), and would consider myself a fan of hers.  I will be adding these two to my reading list, as I also heard a really interesting review of them on NPR some time back.

Ursula K. LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest
The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic, and deservedly so.  It's considered the first feminist sci-fi work.  It's notable for its construction of gender, in particular.

John Carey: Faber Book of Utopias

Arthur C. Clarke: The City & the Stars,  Against the Fall of Night,and The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (especially “The Star”)
I've read some Arthur C. Clarke, notably Childhood's End, and he's well worth reading, although not a particular favorite of mine.

Michael Moorcock: Behold the Man

John Scalzi: Old Man's War, Zoe's Tale - and his blog, “Whatever”

Elizabeth Moon: The Deed of Paksenarrion: A Novel and others

Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game (Ender, Book 1), Speaker for the Dead (Ender, Book 2) (Ender Wiggin Saga), and the short story “Mortal Gods” found in Unaccompanied Sonata & Other Stories
I was once a big Orson Scott Card fan.  I've read more of his books than any other author in the genre.  However, I stopped reading him when I started getting fed up with the fact that they were always a boy or man with extraordinary power at the center of things, often saving the universe--a Christ figure, in other words.  I would still encourage people to read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, because I think they are phenomenal books.  I just re-read Ender's Game, and I still love it.  But borrow them, buy them used, or get them from the library, as Orson Scott Card is also involved with NOM, and vocal and active against same-sex marriage. 

Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents
If you only read one book on this list, make it be Parable of the Sower, in my opinion.  It's a wonderful sci-fi exploration of process theology.  It's dystopian, but hopeful at the same time.  It's really, really good.  So good I've quoted it in sermons which have nothing else to do with science fiction.

Roger Zelazny: The Amber Series, i.e. The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10 (Chronicles of Amber) and Lord of Light

Harlan Ellison: Deathbird Stories
I once did a whole paper in college on Deathbird Stories, which is a collection that has a lot to say about God, or gods.  It wasn't a very good paper, though.  I could write a better one now.

Sarah Zettel: No specific work suggested
Zettel grew up Unitarian Universalist, says the UU World when reviewing A Sorcerer's Treason.

Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow
I have never read a more  disturbing set of books than The Sparrow and Children of God.  That said, go read them.  They are phenomenal and profound.  They have much to say about manifest destiny and about theology.  Just be prepared for the nightmares. 

“Alien Planet” (YouTube)

Gary Shteyngart: Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel

         I was deeply disturbed when Caylee Anthony went missing and mourned her death.  I know why, too.  She was of a similar age to my own daughter, and at least one person told me that Caylee reminded this person of my own daughter.  Caylee's big brown eyes, in particular, do have a resemblance.
         I cried when I read about Christina Taylor Green, who was 9 years old when she died in the shootings in Tucson.  She, too, reminded me of my daughter, a precocious, politically-involved, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl. 
         I know why I mourned these little girls who, for a moment, caught our nation's attention.  They were innocent, beautiful, and gone too soon.  And they were in the media spotlight -- beautiful little girls -- white little girls.  Their deaths were horrible, outrageous, and made us sad and also furious.
         Too often the children whose deaths we mourn as a society are like Caylee and Christina Taylor -- the white little girls.  Too seldom do we, as a society or as individuals unconnected to the family mourn young black children killed.
         This point about who captures our national attention and who we mourn and how there really is racism involved in this was brought home to me this week from an unlikely source -- a fictional one.  Like many others, I've read The Hunger Games and went to see the movie last week.  The character of Rue had a particularly tragic death in the book.  It's particularly tragic because she becomes a person who is important to the heroine, Katniss, and who Katniss particularly mourns, because she reminds her of her own little sister, Primrose.  Suzanne Collins, the author, describes Rue saying, "She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that's she's very like Prim in size and demeanor."  I know why I mourned Rue.  I had little sisters, too.  Rue was beautiful, innocent, and young.  Her character as portrayed in the movie also reminded me of my sisters and daughter. 
          But for some, the fact that they identified with Rue and mourned her death means that she can't be black -- even though the text says she is and the author has directly stated that she is African-American, too.  There are a number of twitter users who have posted about The Hunger Games following the movie saying thing such as, "why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie" (prompting, thankfully, spoofs such as "why does Frederick Douglass have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined abolition"), "call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn't as sad" (Yes, you're a racist), and "Rue looks nothing like I imagined her.  Isn't she supposed to be a pale redhead (or was that just in MY head?)?  Why is she black?" (Yes, it was just in YOUR head.)  For more, see what I think is the original Jezebel story here, more Jezebel commentary here, and a bunch of racist tweets here.
         Yes, too often the children whose deaths we mourn as a society are the white little girls, and too seldom do we mourn young black children killed.  That's why these people struggle with Rue being black--they mourned her, not realizing her race, and assumed her, therefore, to be white, despite textual evidence.  If you care, if she's important, she must be white.  We're used to not caring in our society about young black children who are killed.  And even more so those who are boys, boys killed too soon like Trayvon Martin.  Trayvon was innocent, beautiful, precocious, and gone too soon, too. His death was wrong, horrible, outrageous.  And remarkably, it, too, caught media attention and made us sad and furious.
         The fact that we are, really, conditioned through our media and our culture to be more sympathetically inclined towards dead white children and to find their deaths sadder and more outrageously wrong makes it even more clear how very, very wrong Trayvon's death was.  The fact that we are paying attention to it not because of his race but despite of his race shows how very, very horrible and wrong it was.  If you've listened to the 911 calls and heard him crying for help and heard the level of distress of the callers calling 911 you know it was brutal.  A beautiful, promising young man carrying iced tea, Skittles, and a cell phone, gunned down for the crime of walking while black and wearing a hoodie -- of course we are, and should be, outraged, sad, angry, furious, and tearful.  And there can be no doubt that if this was a young white boy, a high school football player, walking home from a store who was shot by a black man who happened to think he was up to no good for walking home that night, that the shooter would be behind bars awaiting trial, a trial at which he would not be treated kindly by the justice system.
         President Obama has said that the nation needs "soul-searching" in response to Trayvon's death.  In response, people are saying things such as "If Trayvon’s mother were white, would Obama give her a call?" implying that it is the president, not the shooter, who is the racist.  Of course, for Christina Taylor Green, Obama did speak at her funeral.  But facts never get in the way of racist attacks on the president.
         We do need a national soul-searching in response to Trayvon.  And especially if his death doesn't prompt sadness and outrage, we do need soul-searching.