Panelist Aziz Sani speaks at the Expressions on Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis event in Nyumburu Cultural Center’s Multipurpose Room Tuesday night.

Trayvon Martin and his hooded jacket captured public attention two years ago when neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman shot and killed him, using Florida’s “stand your ground” law as his defense.

“We know what the law is, but it’s an unfair law that I could walk past you and brush up against you and you could feel threatened and you could turn around and kill me and say you were standing your ground because I bumped into you,” said Anne Carswell, associate director at the Nyumburu Cultural Center. “It’s like it’s a law that’s made to protect people when they kill someone.”

Students discussed enduring issues of racism in America and Florida’s “stand your ground” law during an interactive panel discussion about the murder cases of Martin and Jordan Davis, another Florida teenager killed in 2012, yesterday night in the Nyumburu Cultural Center Multipurpose Room.

As a part of Black History Month, the center hosted this event with co-sponsors the National Council of Negro Women, the Sisterhood of Unity & Love and the Black Male Initiative.

“This is an important issue because I feel like everyone can learn from this,” said Niccara Campbell, a senior African American studies major and student ambassador for the center who served as a panelist.

The conversation started with video clips of media coverage of the trial of Michael Dunn, who shot and killed Davis. 

Senior family science major and Sisterhood of Unity & Love president Natsnet Haileab led the discussion as the moderator, asking questions, adding her own comments and calling on panelists and audience members to participate.

“The ‘stand your ground’ law is what needs to be changed,” she said. “That’s crazy that you can feel scared and kill somebody off of that.”

Two jurors for Dunn’s trial interviewed in a clip from MSNBC’s The Last Word said race was not taken into consideration when determining the verdict.

“For them to take out race is doing Jordan Davis a disservice,” Campbell said. 

Carswell, the event coordinator, said Florida’s “stand your ground” law is “just another way to kill black men.”

Mike Mpamaugo, a sophomore civil engineering major and panelist at the event, said he can relate to Martin.

“I can identify with it, walking to 7-Eleven to get candy,” he said. “I do it every day, and when I saw it, I said, ‘That could be me.’”

Campbell and Carswell both made personal testimonies to the existence of racism today. Campbell referenced a noose hung on a tree outside of the center in September 2007. 

“Racism is always an issue, it might not be in your face, but it’s always an issue,” she said. “They just got rid of the black cultural center at Michigan State, who knows what could happen to Nyumburu? Wake up. It’s all about race; it will never not be about race until white people say it’s not about race anymore.”