When I first started seeing articles posted about George Zimmerman's call for a celebrity boxing match, I thought that I was reading one of the many poor attempts at satire made by an increasing number of The Onion knockoffs finding their way onto the Web. Men that stalk, shoot and kill unarmed teenagers aren't typically heralded as celebrities. When I think of George Zimmerman, who is famous for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, I think of a notorious figure, not someone who should be celebrated.
Imagine my shock and awe to learn that not only was Zimmerman really calling for a celebrity boxing match, but that people were listening. Rappers Jayceon 'The Game' Taylor and Earl 'DMX' Simmons were very vocal about wanting to fight Zimmerman. It's not impossible to think that there would be people lined up for an opportunity to fight George Zimmerman, a man that not only got away with stalking and killing an unarmed teen, but also clearly can't fight based on his predilection for fighting women and a teenager -- people he perceives to be lesser than him.
What's more troubling about this debacle of a "celebrity" event is that its popularity reached fever pitch on the day of Trayvon Martin's birth. George Zimmerman and DMX's camps prematurely confirmed this celebrity boxing match, a deal which had not yet closed, on Trayvon Martin's birthday. The only thing worse than the killer of an unarmed teenager with a history of domestic violence fighting a clearly still cracked out formerly iconic rapper whose downward spiral is continuing with all due deliberate speed is that this would be happening on the birthday of the teenager whose unjust death is the only reason that a loser like Zimmerman could gain celebrity and a drug addict like DMX could try and reclaim his fame.
Zimmerman continues to profit on the death of Trayvon Martin. If indeed he was just defending himself, then why continue the parade of shenanigans, the latest of which is this boxing match? The same need that Zimmerman had for relevancy which led him to try to be a police officer and fail, and then try to make himself out to be a hero by killing a teenager and then fail is the cult of celebrity that he has been chasing his entire life. In true George Zimmerman fashion, he accepts a fight with rapper DMX, a drug addicted criminal who is small in stature and nowhere near his prime and like Zimmerman, has delusions of greatness that he will never reclaim when living a life this completely out of control.
Who wants to see a violent bully and a cracked-out middle-aged rapper fight anyway? Not me, but obviously others do which makes this circus so frightening. The inmates are clearly running the asylum in a world where an alleged sociopath like Zimmerman and a troubled rapper like DMX (and the idiots in their camps) think that two criminals profiting on the death of a child by creating this spectacle is a good idea. The real victim of this heinous crime, Trayvon Martin, is victimized again and during the week of his birthday no less. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the world is unwilling to see black boys as victims and that is nothing to celebrate.
Nsenga K. Burton is founder & editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire, an award-winning news site that covers news of the African Diaspora.