After reading a few misguided attempts to explain the Geroge Zimmerman verdict, I cannot sit by and let people perpetuate this notion of the racist South.

After spending eight years visiting and living in the South. I've never met one racist person, especially in Florida. This isn't to say racist people do not exist, but they are found across the country.

The South has moved forward but parts of the country like to constantly remind them of their past mistakes. It seems like we northerners love to look at the South through a pair of twisted rose-colored glasses to find a racist undertone in everything they do.

In the Zimmerman case, racism was injected by the media, it was not a motivator of the situation. If NBC hadn't spliced together that 911 call a year ago, would we be talking about the race issue, let alone this case? The history of the South is not a reason for the Zimmerman verdict; it is fodder for those who seek the continued division of this nation.