Rally in response to the George Zimmerman verdict (Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue)

By Julianne Hing

Just about the only people interested in standing by George Zimmerman right now are avowed white supremacists, his family and Juror B37. But for Latinos, people of color and progressives he’s more than a problem. He’s a pariah. His acquittal highlights the reality that in a society built on white supremacy, non-black people of color can reap the benefits of anti-black racism, too.

Think about how Zimmerman, who is white and Peruvian, exploited confusion about his racial identity. Depending on who you ask, he’s white, he’s Hispanic or he’s “white Hispanic.” His family used that fluidity to sway public opinion.

Zimmerman’s Peruvian mother insisted on downplaying his Hispanic roots, his brother Robert told Fox News Latino recently. “Our family very deliberately left the injection of another racial element off the table,” he said, adding that they wanted to “redirect the public’s understanding that there was no crime in self-defense, no matter the participants’ color.”

At other times, the family traded on his Peruvian heritage. In an interview with Michel Martin on NPR’s Tell Me More, Robert claimed that the public was trying to turn his brother into “some kind of mythological racist monster, [so] they lighten his picture, they call him white, they call him a racist” when he “is actually a Hispanic non-racist person who acted in self-defense.”

Zimmerman’s father took a similar tact writing in the Orlando Sentinel that “George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends.” A few sentences later he added, “[A] black neighbor said that George was the only one, black or white, who came and welcomed her to the community, offering any assistance he could provide.” In other words, George Zimmerman was a “minority” one minute and in the next he was the only white person kind enough to help out a black neighbor.

For their part, conservatives have insisted that Latino groups claim Zimmerman as their own, a strategy designed to put advocates on the defensive.

Read More The Curious Case of George Zimmerman’s Race – COLORLINES.