By Eugene Kane Senior Writer and Columnist Published Mar 26, 2013 at 3:05 PM

It's hard to say exactly what the brother of the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin thinks he was doing with a recent Twitter rant about the inherent danger of being around young African-American males.

Robert Zimmerman created a firestorm recently on Twitter by comparing the slain Martin, who was killed by George Zimmerman in an incident some have called racial profiling, with the accused killer of a 1-year-old child in Georgia.

Robert Zimmerman made the comparison of Martin  in a series of tweets that seemed to suggest it was understandable for most whites to think "blacks mightB risky."

Discussing the incident in which a pair of teens allegedly shot and killed a 1-year-old child and wounded the mother during a robbery attempt, Zimmerman tweeted: "Lib media should ask if what these black teens did 2 a woman&baby is the reason ppl think blacks mightB risky."

In other words, Robert Zimmerman seems to suggest it was OK for his armed brother to racially profile Martin and follow the 17-year-old like he was a criminal, which ended up in a confrontation that left Martin dead.

By comparing Martin with another African-American male accused of committing a horrific crime, the brother throws a cloud of suspicion over an entire group of people based on nothing more than skin color.

George Zimmerman is currently awaiting trial after dropping his controversial "Stand Your Ground" defense in a racially charged case that gripped the nation last year. Robert Zimmerman seems to be adding fuel to those who speculated that George Zimmerman had a prejudice against black males that led him to suspect the boy of trespassing.

The attitudes expressed in the tweets send out by Robert Zimmerman appear to encourage the idea that all young black men are somehow suspect as potential criminals even if they've done nothing at all. That kind of thinking might get George Zimmerman off during trial if a jury of his peers accepts it but it does nothing to help the issue of racial stereotyping.

In that sense, Robert Zimmerman is not doing his brother – or any of us – any favors. 

Eugene Kane Senior Writer and Columnist

Eugene Kane is veteran Milwaukee journalist and nationally award winning columnist.

Kane writes about a variety of important issues in Milwaukee and society that impact residents of all backgrounds.