During two weeks under Morocco’s sheltering skies, one loses a granulated sense of current American civil discourse. Sipping mint tea in the souks of Marrakesh, the world filtered through the International Herald Tribune, it appeared that Iranian nuclear policy, gas prices, and the health care challenge were sucking up American discursive oxygen. I was vaguely aware that a teenager had been shot in a small town in Florida, but across the ocean that seemed like a routine tragedy in a nation awash in firearms. Teens are often shot and often shooters.
Within hours of touching down at JFK, I learned that the killing (or, some insist, the murder) of Trayvon Martin in Deland, Florida, constituted that now-common spark that creates a blaze in the public sphere. As is so common when the insistent force of the image outruns mundane evidence, people were making forceful pronouncements, selectively parsing the facts of the incident. Trayvon was transformed from a Skittles-eating kid to a talking point. Anytime an adolescent dies, we should weep, but should we pounce?
As many have noted, from Attorney General Eric Holder on down, Americans have great difficulty – perhaps cowardice – in discussing the pathologies and the possibilities of racial contact. Even our president is palpably anxious behind his bully pulpit. So rather than discussing the broad structural challenges of race relations we often rely on idiosyncratic moments, often tragic ones: Bernard Goetz, the subway vigilante; the dragging death of James Byrd; the wilding attack on the Central Park jogger; and, of course, OJ. Now we discuss the shooting death of young African-American Trayvon Martin in a suburban gated community. Each of these instances is a rare and atypical moment, but they are magnified to reveal pervasive racial animosities and resentments. And frequently what we believe is at some remove from how the events evolved.
The jury is still out on Trayvon’s shooting, or perhaps with more accuracy the jury hasn’t yet been called in. But on that evening of February 26th, 17-year-old Trayvon, wearing a hoodie, was returning to his father’s home in a gated community in Deland, where neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman noticed him and felt that he was acting suspiciously. As things transpired – we know not how, precisely – Trayvon died from a gunshot wound, and Zimmerman is in hiding, not arrested but under moral assault. With the details trickling out, the story became curiouser. Despite the reputation of gated communities as redoubts of the white elite, Zimmerman is Hispanic (sometimes snidely described as “white Hispanic”) and Trayvon’s father is black. Both reside in this gated community, which is perhaps a positive sign of a sort.
As information was released, neither Martin nor Zimmerman was a paragon. In 2005 Zimmerman was charged with resisting arrest with violence and battery on an officer, a charge that was dropped. Trayvon had been suspended several times from high school with indications of drug use and perhaps burglary. While this background does not determine what happened that February night, imperfection rules. Together the two created a complex puzzle.
Is this a case of “walking while black”: A harmless youth harassed, and then murdered, because of the symbolism of his hoodie and the pigment of his skin. Or was this an instance in which a wild youth threatened the tranquil order of a multi-racial community. These two are surrounded by others who attempted to use the incident for their own purposes. The filmmaker Spike Lee felt it his responsibility to tweet the (wrong) address for George Zimmerman, leading an elderly couple to fear for their lives. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson each hoped to boost their own sagging street cred. Ann Coulter for her part likened those who wanted justice for young Martin to the KKK. Gun rights advocates have weighed in, endorsing Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, permitting the use of deadly force.
These incidents misdirect us away from the deliberate consideration of our real racial divides. As we tell them, these are stories that are too good to be false. We trap ourselves when treating racial imaginaries as definitive accounts. As a parent myself, I recognize the anguish of Trayvon’s parents. Further, as a student of racial rumors (in my book with Patricia Turner, Whispers on the Color Line) I realize how difficult it is to avoid the desire to draw conclusions based on hunches. However, the debate over the linked fate of George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin reveals our racial tensions at their most troubling. We would rather have our fantasy Martin and Zimmerman without waiting for the complex world to unspool. Perhaps the events of February 26 hold a mirror up to American race relations, but more surely the discussions since that Sunday do so. It is not the acts of Martin and Zimmerman that we need most to worry about, but the claims of those who struggle to fit these two into Procrustean boxes of their own design.
It seems to me that this is a cynical argument. It doesn’t matter whether Trayvon Martin was a perfect little teenager or not. Zimmerman was recorded on tape as saying he was following Martin. He was told not to do this by the police dispatcher. This is clear, but the police did not investigate. That’s what people (celebrities and non-celebrities) are upset about. As more of the story has been leaked, it’s even more evident that Zimmerman should be taken into custody and tried. Let the whole story be told in court with witness and expert testimony. Doesn’t it seem that the Stand Your Ground law could have more easily been applied to Martin, who could have tried to defend himself from his armed pursuer? Martin was not able to tell his story.
I don’t really get the sense that Dr. Fine’s argument is cynical. It appears to me that he is asking for a calmer, more sober reflection on the state of race relations in the United States. However, I do find troubling the statement that “Trayvon had been suspended several times from high school with indications of drug use and perhaps burglary,” which is all too similar to the loose media discourse surrounding the tragedy. What might be more instructive here would be to mention some facts, that is, the specific referents of the words “drug use” and “burglary.” Drug use here refers to smoking marijuana, and specifically an empty bag which had once contained marijuana was found. As for “perhaps burglary,” this refers to Martin’s possession of a “burglary kit,” which refers to a screwdriver, which was assumed he use to steal the women’s jewelry which was also found in his possession. (To my knowledge Martin was never charged with burglary).
I do think that the “Stand Your Ground” may have just as easily been applied to Martin. The fact that, in the absence of witnesses, the police take the word of the assumed defender. Does this make the law in essence a license to kill? Why was it just assumed that Martin was the attacker? Because he was black? I would really want to know more about the “Stand Your Ground” law and who it was designed to protect. It seems obvious that this law was not designed to protect young black men wearing hoodies from community watch volunteers that decide to play vigilante for no apparent reason.
I feel that Fine’s argument is cynical in the sense that he is imputing ill motives onto others. Celebrities or public figures can have motives that are as genuine as anybody else. Assuming that Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson have spoken up to improve their street cred is just plain cynical. This is the attitude people get who want to disengage from public life, not vote, etc. I’m not a fan of either of these people, but I’m not going to start second guessing what they truly believe. Public figures and celebrities do have the ability to use their fame to highlight injustice in an effort to influence others to affect change. Mark Ruffalo, for instance, is trying to draw attention to the pollution of water supplies that could be linked to fracking. He has been giving a round of interviews on this topic. Is he doing this because he’s a washed up actor who wants to get back in the limelight?
Fine is also saying that people “would rather have their fantasy.” I don’t believe this to be the case. People want an investigation so, as best as possible, the truth of that night can be known.
Obviously, there is a need for intelligent dialog in this country about race relations. I agree with Fine about this. There also needs to be a discussion about guns, and gun laws. I “enjoyed” an article by Gail Collins a couple of weeks ago where she’s writing about a hypothetical scenario of a hooded teenager feeling compelled to carry a gun to protect himself from a wanna-be do-gooder, and a confrontation leads to a little old lady getting shot in her living room while watching the evening weather report. Here is where I can get cynical, or perhaps just sad, because I don’t have much hope that any anti-gun legislation can get past the NRA.
Everything about this article is written through white eyes. The conjecture alone is so ridiculous as to be insulting. I get tired of supposed well-meaning white people. They’re worse than the outright racists.
Hey Deborah, some of us are tired of all the black-on-black crime and black-on-white crime. God Bless Bernie Goetz.
Little old ladies in THEIR HOMES watching TV’s are not big criminal suspects.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here, but in case I wasn’t clear, here is the paragraph from Gail Collins’s column that I was referring to.
“There is a serious trend toward states letting their residents carry
concealed weapons with no more background check than you need to carry a
concealed nutcracker. All of this is based on the gun rights lobby’s
argument that the more armed law-abiding people we have on our streets,
the safer everybody will be. Under this line of thinking, George
Zimmerman’s gated community was safer because Zimmerman was driving
around with his legal gun. You can bet that future Trayvon Martins who
go to the store to buy Skittles after dark will seriously consider
increasing their own safety by packing heat. The next confrontation
along these lines may well involve a pair of legally armed individuals,
legally responding to perceived, albeit nonexistent, threats by sending a
bullet through somebody’s living room window and hitting a senior
citizen watching the evening weather report.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/opinion/collins-more-guns-fewer-hoodies.html?ref=gailcollins&_r=0
My comment was made long ago, but is still very relevant with the horrors of gun violence continuing to escalate.