Ever since the Zimmerman jury reached its verdict, heavy protests and continuing media coverage have highlighted the struggle for many Americans to process the shooting death of a young black teenager, armed with nothing more than a hooded sweatshirt and a pack of skittles, now that no one is to be held accountable. But to move forward from this horrible tragedy requires acknowledging that we have been here before. To treat this situation as unique is part of a recurring case of collective amnesia afflicting this country every time the ever-present undertones of racial bias rise to the surface in a high-profile criminal case.

Less than 30 years ago, the country was gripped by a startlingly similar story, when Bernhard Goetz, known in the media as "the subway vigilante", walked onto a New York City train with a concealed weapon, and ended up shooting four black teenagers at point blank range. For those who don't remember, Goetz was a mid-30s, white, electronics store employee, with oversized glasses, who, in 1984, decided he would fear no longer, choosing instead to take the law into his own hands.

After being denied a firearm permit in New York, he purchased a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson on a trip to Florida and illegally brought it back into the city. On the night of the shooting, Goetz, by his own admission, did not sit on the side of the subway car where professionals were gathered for their commute, but instead, on the far side, where the four teenagers were being generally loud and unruly.

Like Zimmerman, Goetz was emboldened by his weapon, and, like Zimmerman, Goetz justified his actions by claiming self-defense. In his depositions, he claimed he felt threatened when the boys approached and one allegedly said, "give me five dollars." His response? "Oh I'll give you five dollars," immediately unloading five bullets even as the boys tried to flee.

One of the victims, my former client, remains paralyzed and sustains brain injuries to this day. Yet, Goetz's justification worked, as he was cleared on all attempted murder charges. In total, he would serve just eight months in prison for the only charge to stick: possession of an illegal firearm.

We may ask how, when George Zimmerman pursued this young man after being told not to by police, he could be found innocent. But why this continues to happen is the deeper question at hand. In 1984, New York City was rife with crime, and the well-to-do, mostly white residents of Manhattan were afraid. They projected those fears onto one demographic: young, black males.

Although New York City is, in many ways, a more diverse and far safer place today, the same issues are reflected in our present consciousness. Just last month, Mayor Bloomberg audaciously voiced his support for the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk program by claiming "minorities are stopped too little." This is in a city where the police have stopped more black men in a year than even live in the city. And yet, as the figures show multiple stops of the same innocent men year after year, the mayor's message says, "they are the ones to target; they are the ones to fear."

It can be argued that Bernhard Goetz and George Zimmerman both left their homes with this same mentality when they chose to carry concealed weapons. Each felt emboldened with the knowledge that if trouble came his way, if he were to encounter one of the young "punks" – terminology used by both men – who always seem to get away, that he would not have to fear. Goetz knew, just as Zimmerman did, that he would be able to deliver swift justice with a bullet at his own discretion.

And just as in Goetz's trial, the nearly all-white jury in Zimmerman's was asked to empathize with the source of their fears, a demographic that New Yorkers and all Americans have been socialized to associate with crime, even though Trayvon Martin was an honors' student with a promising future. The closest person to a witness the prosecution had, Rachel Jeantel, was viciously torn apart by both the defense and the public for her use of slang, and her inability to read cursive. Meanwhile, Zimmerman's white, upper-middle-class character witnesses vouched for his good standing.

It is easy to claim "beyond a reasonable doubt" is the sole reason why George Zimmerman walks free. And it may help us to feel assured that he had a legal right to shoot the boy he pursued that night with a pistol tucked into his waistband.

But from the duration of prison sentences and rates of conviction for non-violent offenses, to the disparities in application of the death penalty, to the hundreds of thousands of stops-and-frisks that are documented in New York each year, evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system is impossible to overlook, absent willful blindness. Race is a factor in the courts whether we acknowledge it or not.

To allow analysis of the verdicts in the Goetz and Zimmerman cases to be separated from this ugly double-standard is not simply irresponsible; it is tacit approval for history to repeat itself, yet again, the next time a young black male is profiled by an armed assailant.