Walking While Black: The Senseless Killing of Trayvon Martin ~EXISTING WHILE BLACK IN AMERICA series~
By Dr. Darron T. Smith
The recent slaying of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin is yet another reminder of the every day presence of racism in the United States. I find it necessary to remind everyone that this is not an isolated incident, but one that occurs daily across America for most black men. The difference here is that the normal threats and harassment that Trayvon would typically encounter on any given day as a black man, turned into his innocent death. As Malcolm Gladwell (http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html) discussed in the death of Amadou Diallo, an innocent black man in New York City who was mistakenly shot 19 times by 4 police officers (who fired a total of 41 shots), the decisions that George Zimmerman made about Trayvon Martin were done in a “blink of an eye”. His actions, on the other hand, were done in justification of his already conceived (and likely subconscious) thoughts about this young man rather than in response to Trayvon’s clearly non-threatening behavior. Any one of Zimmerman’s compilation of actions that fateful evening, if terminated, would have likely resulted in a different outcome, one where Trayvon would still be alive today. But Zimmerman is operating on societal-based stereotypes and assumptions of anti-black racial frames about black men that has been around since the mid-1600’s and continues in today’s white-dominated society.
I find it hard to understand why anyone would be foolish enough to discount the continuing assault on the black male presence. Black men have always been public enemy number one in white America, and that has not changed much in 400 years. Since slavery times, African American men were seen as threats to white manhood. Unrelenting white racial stereotypes around black male bodies provided the perfect justification for the incredible violence directed at them, whether in the cotton fields or working for his master in the big house.
Black men were clearly not on equal footing with other men, especially white men for centuries. The conditions, stories, received wisdoms and other discourses created by whites about black folk constituted predictable cognitive road maps or frames that white folks enacted on black bodies. Frames are patterned ways of thinking about human differences such as race that apply generally to people at large and influence our legal system, schooling, healthcare, unemployment and housing to name a few. The white racial frames (http://www.amazon.com/White-Racial-Frame-Centuries-Counter-Framing/dp/041599439X) created around “Black” were and remains anathema, which is certainly the case with Trayvon’s senseless death. The shooter, George Zimmerman, a man of apparent Latino heritage and self-proclaimed neighborhood watch captain, mystifies many white observers. Given that both black and brown people in American are oppressed, how could this be? What’s happening here is that Zimmerman is acting on the existing white racial frames that operate as unconscious scripts on how to interact with racial “others” in our society.
White racial framing of black male bodies is a large-scale centuries-old undertaking that not only affects white behavior toward Blacks, but black and latino behaviors toward each other and themselves (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/Study?tid=-1). These racial understandings have existed ever since Europeans first stepped foot on the Western shores of Africa and began a long and tortuous relationship with Africans. And this continues today where the steady stream of media portrayals of young black men as “dangerous” predators is too prolific in our society to ignore. Anyone reading this blog can certainly think of one or more stereotypes about black men. When you think of the face of crime, it is easy to conjure the image of Trayvon or another young man of color as the scary and dangerous “other” or the boogey man. Minorities are not immune to this frame or thought process. Latinos, Blacks and other Americans of color receive and act on many of the same white racial stereotypes and impulses, and Mr. Zimmerman is no exception.
Now, take the context of white society from its historical vantage point and see how it continues the play out (albeit less overt at times). Floridians have instituted a law that has resurrected the Wild Wild West, which allows an individual to take the law into his/her own hands (http://news.yahoo.com/florida-man-lives-tell-shoot-first-horror-051159162.html). A law seemingly provoked by the looting that occurred following several Florida hurricanes. After filtered media images following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the assumption is that the people looting are black. Thus, the law can be interpreted such that if a black man is stealing, a white man can shoot and kill him. And the onus is placed on the victim from prove he was innocent of a crime before being shot. We have now gone even beyond the egregious “eye for an eye” and moved to a place where a heart can be taken for the loss of a finger, but no one seemed to care that the law implied it was the heart of a black man until it was taken literally. What results is that someone like Trayvon Martin has become caught in the crosshairs of a nation that has yet to truly reconcile its profoundly racist past.
While the nation continues to mount an all out and justifiable assault on the circumstances surrounding Trayvon’s death, let’s not forgot the conditions that gave rise to this young man’s death in the first place: white supremacy, or to put it nicely, a white dominated society. Rest in peace Trayvon Martin; may your death not be in vain.
Please sign the below petition and forward to all concerned stakeholders: https://www.change.org/petitions/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin
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I have never had an issue about black people in my life. Though I understand racism still exists for not only black people, I find it also includes racism towards whites. The consequences are not nearly as devastating but I don’t believe any race or culture or religion has it 100% right because the people themselves are imperfect.
Another factor is profiling and though many see it as a bad thing I have a real hard time believing that it is 100 % wrong. I mean it is based on statistics that often are true, whether we like it or not.
I do not even attempt to judge Mr. Zimmerman as automatically racial in his behavior. He could have been basing his conclusions on the fact that the boy was a teen. That is profiling too, and yes, some teens can be up to something. I wish it wasn’t so but when vandalism happens in my town almost all of us, even teens, think the guilty party must automatically be teens. There is a reason for that.
What is really wrong is judging without the facts, punishing someone for something they did not do. Regardless of race or whatever.
This will never be a perfect world. But the best solution I can see is that we talk about our problems and try to lay off on the woe is me I am being racially, culturally, religiously profiled in a negative way garbage. It is getting us nowhere, we just keep pointing fingers and defending our opinions am that’s never gonnna fix anything.
This isn’t new, it’s been going on for millennia and what have we learned?
We better learn what we are supposed to be learning from these challenges and make some real progress. We need to bette selfless and kind to each other regardless.
That’s my thoughts on the matter. I am white and a Mormon. If that is what you want to know. I answered your surveymonkey thing and thought you had some good questions.
Greetings before I reply please let me know if you get this email.
Dr. Smith
I too was enraged at the initial reports about this tragedy. I wrote into newspapers and commented on blogs. Then, more information came out and I was stung deeply by my reaction. Like myself, you have made claims in the above article about Mr. Zimmerman that you do not know and cannot know are true. I had to “walk back” my statements because I realized that I was reacting with minimal, one sided information. I just could not see how there could possibly be another side of the story as he was an unarmed kid with skittles in his pocket! When I was young and dressed in a certain manner, I was too often up to no good. As a consequence of my previous actions, people in the neighborhood without any proof held me in deep suspicion of being the cause of too much mischief in our neighborhood. I can’t claim racism as I am white, but I could not become offended at their profiling of me nor of my friends due to our appearance and mannerisms. By all accounts, Trayvon was not up to anything wrong. However, I can no longer fault Mr. Zimmerman for following Trayvon after what had been happening in his neighborhood. There could be other reasons why he was followed besides the color of his skin. He was young, he was unfamiliar in the neighborhood and he was wearing a hoodie. Hoodies are justifiably associated with crime as youth wear them to hide their identification when they steal or assault people. You’ve seen the videos of the random assaults that groups of youth organized with their cell phones. They were wearing hoodies when the all invaded a store and stripped the shelves. Or when they picked out some unsuspecting passerby to assault for no other reason than they were white. I’m sure my actions brought a lot of suspicion not only on myself when I wasn’t acting foolishly, but upon others who were completely innocent. This just shows that when you do wrong things, the repercussions go far beyond the seeming small acts of delinquency.