Stuff White People Know (or: What We Talk About When We Talk About Trayvon) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Foreword: The Racial Double Homicide of Trayvon Martin
New York University Press eBooks, 2020
The murder of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. The acquittal of George Zimmerman on murder charges was an unspeakable national shame and travesty. I referred to it at the time as the second murder of Trayvon Martin. Yet, to mention these events does as much to stir controversy and dissension as it does to generate a shared sense of community and moral outrage. It is hard now even to fashion a language and terminology that is not immediately read as signaling what "side" one is on in the matter; the places where race, crime, and policing meet are simply that acutely and instantly polarizing. And make no mistake, I have chosen language that makes clear where I stand. Both murders of Trayvon Martin are of a piece with deep problems of discrimination, racism, and class bias woven into the fabric of our criminal justice system and of the American social order writ large. Indeed, perhaps the situation's most numbing aspect is not the loss of a young man's life and the subsequent failure of police, prosecutors, juries, and the courts, but rather the disturbing continuity of these events with so many others like it that both preceded and will surely follow them. One need only list the names of the unjustly dead to capture the long and national scope of this problem, such as Jimmie Lee Jackson, Eleanor Bumpurs, Tyisha Miller, Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and more. What is the fundamental nature of that problem? The simple polarizing answers are easy enough to invoke. We hear "racist cops" from one side. From the other side we hear of a very real problem of "black criminality. " The core of the problem, to my mind, is the wedding of socioeconomic, legal-political, and cultural racism. To say this, however, is to immediately point to complex historical conditions and social process
Reflections on the Murder of Trayvon Martin
Journal for Social Action in Counseling & Psychology, 2013
The tragic murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida has quickly become the platform from which an entire movement has emerged. The first four authors, as members of the African American community, have elected to share their own personal experiences, reactions, and struggles with not only racial discrimination as it relates to the Trayvon Martin case, but racial discrimination in general for African Americans. The purpose of the article is to educate readers on the harsh realities of pervasive racism and to provide recommendations on ways it can be addressed. At the conclusion of this article, the authors have provided recommendations for training programs;educators and practitioners that will help them effectively work through instances of racial discrimination.
After Trayvon- Voices From the Academy Respond to a Tragedy.pdf
This discussion among a community at the University of Oklahoma came from work presented at an event called “After Trayvon.” Several issues about social justice, African-American bodies, the experience of microagressions, the role and responsibility of local police, and the critical roles of history and the media were discussed in a forum with the public.
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2018
There are many reactions parents can have to the loss of children by gun violence. Of course, grief and disbelief are perhaps the most common. Seeking explanations for the loss is also an essential reaction. Most destructive is the need for revenge and retribution to the offending party. Much less common and less documented is parents who react to the loss of a child by violent death with compassion. I discuss the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. Zimmerman was acquitted of the shooting even though Martin was unarmed and there was no clear evidence of an altercation. Trayvon Martin’s parents reacted to the killing and the acquittal with compassion for other parents who have experienced loss and by becoming advocates against gun violence. Compassion and social justice were forged on Trayvon Martin’s loss rather than revenge and hatred. An important lesson for all.
Trayvon Martin and the curriculum of tragedy: critical race lessons for education
In what ways do the tragedies centered on the lives of black youth, particularly black male youth, inform teachers, education policymakers, and teacher educators about what knowledge is most worth knowing? In this counter/story, we will examine the details of the life and death of Trayvon Martin. From these details, we will extract and interpret a curriculum of tragedy that draws from Derrick Bell's particular contributions to critical race theory (CRT) applies its central tenets. This article will conclude with lesson for black education for teachers, education policymakers and teacher educators.
The Framing of Race: Trayvon Martin and the Black Lives Matter Movement
Journal of Black Studies, 2020
This study analyzed two national newspapers to investigate how each framed race in coverage of Trayvon Martin and the Black Lives Matter movement. Drawing from Feagin’s white racial frame as the framework for analysis, results show that the news coverage reflected an encompassing pro-white/anti-black master-frame that presented Black Americans as inadequate, lawless, criminal, threatening and at times biologically different. Some news stories contributed to the media’s conceptualization of race within a liberty-and-justice American myth paradigm. Conversely, whites were presented favorably as “protectors” and “virtuous.” Episodic news frames were discovered with highly-focused coverage on events that shifted attention away from the broader trend of racial profiling. These findings contributed to the understanding of the role of corporate media in reinforcing the framing of race. Emerging sub-frames are discussed.
African Jornal of Rhetoric, 2014
This paper charts the complications arising out of the rhetorical markers of 'Middle Ground' colorblindedness in the unitary fervour attending Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention Speech, wherein the E pluribus unum dictum was planted into both memory and public consciousness through rhetorical features such as Parallelism and Anaphora, both of which resonate with the vision of one diverse American family. Yet, this paper argues, his cautionary response in the aftermath of the Treyvon Martin shooting, attests to a shift to a rhetorical flourish hinged on the Aristotelian antilogiai principle that puts race 'under erasure' through the rhetorical device of variation, whereby he allows public memory to reimagine Treyvon Martin as not only a younger version of Barack Obama but also Treyvon as his son. The paper concludes that between the orotund anaphora of hope and the cautionary diction of despair carried by variation lies hidden the partition of America's cosmetic color-blindedness that paradoxically plays out in profiled, if fatal, racial spectacle of the clash between the 'middle ground' rhetoric and gruesome 'stand your ground' policing. The said clash, in styled rhetoric and historical content, renders America as both the country of dreams for all and a zone of exception and non-being for young, black males.