There are many consequences of America's neoliberal -- private, market-oriented -- approach to social and economic policy. Our sick hold bake sales to pay for their cancer drugs. Our urban school systems -- in Philadelphia and New Orleans -- are dismantled and turned over to corporate-backed charter organizations. Our public transportation systems offer the least bus service in the most destitute neighborhoods where it is most needed. And, increasingly, our middle class and wealthy live behind tall gates and walls in ADT-protected homes.
It is into this society that both Trayvon and George were born. Ultimately, it is this society that facilitated the murder of Trayvon at the hands of George.
Critical anthropologists and sociologists refer to 'neoliberal security governance' as the phenomenon of increasing security privatization in the public realm. In other words, 'security' has become -- not a public good -- but a private commodity to be provided by private organizations and private individuals. Societies, like most parts of the United States and the developing world, in which woefully-inadequate policing and socio-economic disarray lead to widespread violence and disorder, outsource security provision to two sources: private security guards and vigilantes. At the same time, the state subtly retains the right to govern the sector: deciding which private security services can operate and how they will be regulated, as well as what citizens may or may not do to protect and preserve their own security (i.e. Neighborhood Watch, Stand Your Ground laws, etc.).
George exemplifies this framework for understanding security and protection in a neoliberal setting. Emboldened by his gun, Stand Your Ground laws, and his participation in a pseudo-police association (Neighborhood Watch), he adopted the role of neighborhood vigilante. He came to believe that the police were inadequate for ensuring the security of his community and that the crime problems he observed were, at root, the result of anti-social youth operating outside of the dominant socio-economic order (i.e. 'these assholes always get away.'). Young people in his gated community did not have the social 'right' to exist in that private space, and he had the 'power' to remove them, with force and intimidation if necessary.
What kind of a society outsources its social order and security function to vigilantes? What kind of society lives behind walls and gates to keep 'them' out and 'us' in? A society with a non-existent social contract and impotent institutions.
George is a bastard and he deserves to be in prison, but he's our bastard. We created his beliefs, and we collectively created a society in which basic goods -- security, education, health -- are delivered not through a collective social compact, but instead by disjointed private organizations and individuals. It's fine if America wants to operate in this severely neoliberal manner -- it certainly saves the billionaires some tax dollars -- but there are consequences, one of which is the creation of a disastrous security paradigm -- neoliberal security governance -- with the negative externalities of violence, vigilantism, and unarmed teenagers getting shot for walking too slowly.
George may have murdered Trayvon, but, ultimately, we are George.