Halting Abominable Display
Yesterday — on what would have been Trayvon Martin’s 19th birthday — fight promoter Damon Feldman announced a celebrity boxing match between George Zimmerman and rapper DMX.
With the fight’s details set to be announced next week and corporate sponsors yet to sign on, ColorOfChange.org launched a petition urging DMX to pull out of this shameful stunt, and demanding the cancellation of the event.
“This is just the latest stunt by Damon Feldman — a man notorious for organizing fixed, unlicensed celebrity boxing matches,” says Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org
“By promoting this event, Feldman is allowing George Zimmerman to further exploit a dead young Black man for personal gain, while framing this commercial spectacle as an opportunity for ‘justice’ for Trayvon. In reality, Feldman seeks nothing more than to line his pockets with a potentially rigged fight designed to stoke racial strife. This blatant exploitation of Trayvon Martin’s memory by Feldman, Zimmerman, and DMX — and support for their efforts from any media outlets or potential corporate sponsors — will not be tolerated.”
Robinson continues, “This is not how Black folks can get justice for Trayvon Martin. True justice was denied by ‘Shoot First’ laws and a broken court system. We will get no justice from more violence, and we do not honor Trayvon Martin by feeding into the stereotype of Black men as violent and belligerent. Instead of a disrespectful spectacle of violence, Trayvon Martin’s memory should be honored by demanding a justice system that values and protects Black lives, and rids this nation of anti-Black policies like Shoot First. We urge DMX to do the right thing and cancel the fight immediately.”
With more than 900,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.
