The more we hear about George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, the easier it seems to get angry with the neighborhood watch commander who has admitted to shooting the teenager. But there is being angry, and then there's taking your anger over the edge. The threats against Zimmerman's wife, Shellie Zimmerman? Those are the definition of "too far," folks.
Shellie has kept a pretty low profile since her husband's case went from Florida news to international. But his bail hearing forced her participation today, and with it her admission that the hate toward her husband has spilled over big time into her life.
A nursing student four weeks from graduating, she was on the phone with the judge to make it clear that she doesn't have the type of income that could help cover a high-priced bond to spring George from jail. She helped get the court to declare him indigent and apparently helped get him sprung from the pokey. I have a feeling that will do nothing to stop the tide of hate mail she said she's been getting.
But people, can we talk about priorities here? Shellie Zimmerman has done nothing wrong here. She didn't shoot Trayvon Martin. Heck; she wasn't even there when her husband took off after a teenage boy with a hoodie and a bag of Skittles in his hand. And since we know that George was on the phone with a 911 operator who was telling him to stand down and not chase after Trayvon, we also know that Shellie Zimmerman wasn't egging her husband on.
So what do we know? We know that people who are married to one another don't always share the same ideals. We know that love can make us blind to another's faults. We know that a public face and a private one are often very different. Judging Shellie Zimmerman based on the man she's married to is short-sighted ... at best. At worst, it's perilously close to the prejudgment of a black teenager that got her husband into this mess in the first place.
If anything, people should be sending Shellie Zimmerman their condolences today. Married to George for the past five years, we don't know what their marriage has been like or what their plans for the future were. But I can bet they didn't include a charge of second degree murder and the need to hide out of state from vigilante justice.
Shellie Zimmerman probably envisioned a peaceful existence with the man she loved. Instead she's in the middle of a nightmare.
If that makes you hate her, are you really a better person than one who racially profiles a black teenager?