Not guilty. As the verdict was announced Saturday night, people all over my Facebook news feed seemed to be in an uproar. Well, my black friends at least.

From day one, the media has played the George Zimmerman trial as a case of racial prejudice. Zimmerman was widely portrayed as the villain who preyed upon a black teenager. People immediately began to form a biased opinion of the case, and I found it sad that it seemed like black people as a whole were immediately siding against Zimmerman simply because the victim was black and not on the merits of the case.

If the victim was any other race, would black people be as interested in this trial? What if the victim was Latino? They are a minority too in this country. Or how about Asian? What if Zimmerman was black and the victim was Latino? Who is to say that black people wouldn’t side with a black Zimmerman, simply because of “alleged racism” or he was another black person who was “wrongly targeted” for murder?

Let me make this clear: I do not care for Zimmerman. I could not care less whether he was found innocent or guilty. But what I also don’t support is blind racial prejudice.

Siding with Trayvon Martin’s family simply because they’re black or with Zimmerman because he isn’t black is only making the racial divide in America that much greater. Last I checked, justice was blind. This trial should be no different were the defendant a black man and the victim a Latino teenager, but unfortunately, people in America want justice to see in color. And as long as people take sides based on race instead of facts, then racial relations in this country will never be completely fixed.

Hakeem Hasan is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.