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After Trayvon: Black Boys Speak

Bucktown USA Films:

An inspiring and emotionally gripping public conversation amongst nine Black and Latino boys ages 10-17. It was shot in Brooklyn, New York in early April 2012 at the famous House of the Lord Church just days before George Zimmerman was arrested for the fatal shooting. "After Trayvon" brings together these young boys to discuss Trayvon Martin, their own feelings of vulnerability and fear, education, leadership, violence in all forms, history as they understand it, and how they view America, their America. Kevin Powell serves as moderator for the conversation.George

Melissa Harris Perry on Student Walkout at Detroit's Frederick Douglass Academy

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'Framing' Black Males: Trayvon Martin's Tragic killing, Through the Media Looking Glass

Michael Ray Charles, Forever Free, Beware, 1994

Trayvon Martin's Tragic killing, Through the Media Looking Glass

By Alan Jenkins | McClatchy

The mainstream media have played a mostly positive role in covering the tragic and senseless killing of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed, 17-year-old African-American boy shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla. After a slow start, reporters have uncovered new facts and asked tough questions, including about Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee's refusal to arrest Trayvon's killer.

Caught in the media spotlight, Lee has temporarily stepped down. To their credit, media have largely covered Trayvon's grieving and outraged parents with the dignity and humanity they deserve. They have also interviewed community residents, largely white, who have spoken out with grief and outrage over the incident.

But the media, both news and popular, have also had a hand in creating the mindset that leads to tragedies like this one, based on the facts currently available. A new report by The Opportunity Agenda reviewing a decade of research finds that media depictions of African-American men and boys are too frequently distorted in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes and lead to discriminatory treatment.

Those distorted depictions occur across almost all types of media, including news reporting, entertainment, advertising and even video games. Repeated unbalanced media portrayals of African-American men and boys, the report finds, contribute to distorted perceptions, antagonism and discriminatory treatment. They increase public support for punitive approaches to issues involving black males, and increase public tolerance of racial inequality.

In particular, African-American men and boys are disproportionately depicted in news media as perpetrators of violent crime compared with actual arrest rates. They are underrepresented in the more sympathetic roles of victim and law enforcement officers.

Similarly, a study of music videos found that, compared with actual U.S. demographics, blacks are overrepresented as aggressors, whereas whites are underrepresented. Research also shows that African-American men and boys are underrepresented in their real-life positive roles, from responsible fathers to users of computers and other technology. And the structural barriers to opportunity that they disproportionately face - like poor quality schools, inadequate access to health care, and fewer community resources - are not adequately covered.

Not surprisingly, study finds that Americans' conscious and unconscious attitudes are shaped, at least in part, by what they see, read and hear in the media.

Perhaps most chillingly, these media trends appear to increase African-American men's likelihood of being shot without justification. Several studies have shown, for example, that subjects in a video police simulation are more likely to "shoot" black men (holding objects that may or may not be guns) than to fire on white men under the same circumstances. Other studies reinforce the potentially deadly consequences of media and societal bias.

The impact of media distortions is doubly pernicious because it works primarily at the subconscious level, linking black male images with people's visceral emotions more so than with their conscious beliefs. One study cited in the report, for example, found evidence that the amygdala, a region of the brain that is associated with experiencing fear, tends to be more active when whites view an unfamiliar black male face than an unfamiliar white male face, regardless of their conscious racial attitudes.

Thus, it is not surprising to hear the family of Trayvon's killer, George Zimmerman, say that Zimmerman himself is a member of a racial minority and has many minority relatives and friends. All of us carry around stereotypes in our heads, and they are often detached from our conscious attitudes and relationships. Many African-Americans, too, harbor subconscious biases about members of their own group. No ethnic or cultural group is immune from media or societal influences.

Searching for mistakes or missteps in Trayvon's past, as some have done in recent days, is not only irrelevant but a distraction from the issue at hand. None of the details of Trayvon's life were known to George Zimmerman when he shot and killed the boy wearing a hoodie. Rather than asking questions about Trayvon's past, we should be asking ourselves whether black men and boys are put at a disadvantage all over America - sometimes with life or death consequences - by their portrayals in the media. As Trayvon's mother said at a congressional panel on Tuesday, "Trayvon was our son, but Trayvon is your son. A lot of people can relate to our situation."

To be sure, the mass media are not the only factor that shapes people's conscious and subconscious beliefs and biases. But decades of research make clear that distorted media depictions persist and are among the contributing factors to tragedies like the one in Florida.

Fortunately, the mass media can also be part of the solution. Of course, the responsibility is not the media's alone. But the media, as the public looking glass, can and should show the full spectrum of the lives of black men and boys. Media biases and their effects neither absolve nor convict George Zimmerman, who should answer to the legal system. But for most people, having the full picture will result in greater knowledge and fewer irrational fears of innocent black teenagers like Trayvon Martin.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Alan Jenkins is executive director of The Opportunity Agenda, a communications, research and policy organization. Readers may write to him at: The Opportunity Agenda, 568 Broadway, Suite 302, New York, N.Y. 10012; website: www.opportunityagenda.org.

2012, The Opportunity Agenda

Copyright 2012

Hearing Trayvon Die

Hearing Trayvon Die

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

There is dramatic moment in the film Cadillac Records, when musician Muddy Waters, portrayed by Jeffrey Wright, has just watched the body of fellow musician Little Walter (Columbus Short) taken away to the morgue.  Little Walter was more than Waters’ wingman—he was critical to how Waters literally heard himself in the world.  Trying to come to terms with Little Walter’s death, Waters walks upstairs into a bathroom, off-screen, and utters a series of bone-chilling howls that sound like death itself.  It is simply the most arresting moment in the film, and tellingly a moment in which the sounds of death are disembodied from the Black man who is so tortured by the loss of a brother.

I immediately thought about that scene in the film, hearing the 911-tapes that capture—unquestionably in my mind—the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, at the hands of George Zimmerman.  In a world in which Blackness is visually over-determined—both as hyper-visible and invisible—there is no ocular meme more pervasive in American society than that of the so-called violent and dangerous Black male, who is always already in need of pursuit, capture, incarceration and inevitably extermination. 

So powerful is this script, that the fact that such levels of surveillance—from the classroom to the interstate—is un-American, is rarely disturbed in the minds of most Americans, including far too many Blacks.  That more than a few corporations, often with direct input from Black men themselves,  have turned the image of the menacing Black male into a cottage industry (dating back Birth of a Nation’s “Gus”) only speaks to how normative such an image has become.

This is the a point made recently by The Opportunity Agenda in their report “Media Representations and the Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys,” which suggest correlations between media depictions of Black males and lowered life chances.  Specifically the reports suggest casual links between media portrays of Black males and public attitudes directed towards them including  “general antagonisms,” “exaggerated  views related to criminality and violence,” “lack of identification with or sympathy for black males,” and “public support for punitive approaches to problems” related to Black males—all dynamics that have played out in the corporate media coverage of Trayvon Martin’s murder.

None of these observations are surprising to anyone who lives in the body of a Black male, but the report’s highlighting of the casualness of these links suggests that most Americans have no other way to view Black men.  In their most benign forms, such views find older White women clutching their bags in elevators; in its everyday forms Black males are harassed by law enforcement and denied access to equal opportunity; in its most tragic forms, a 17-year-old boy is shot dead by a neighborhood watch captain—and his death is reduced to, if we are to believe Today Show host Matt Lauer, a dispute between two men, as opposed to an adult male pursuing and killing a child because he “looked” dangerous.

As the images of Black males have literally filled the whole frame—in our imaginations and on our iPad screens—their humanity is exponentially squeezed out.  Part of the reason that Jeffrey Wright’s howling had to be experienced off-screen is that we have so little understanding of Black males, as vulnerable, in pain, under duress, in terror and confronting death.  As social scientist Richard Majors acknowledged twenty years ago in his book Cool Pose : The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America, so many of the visual and physical cues performed by Black males are simply masking their vulnerabilities.

The pursuit of justice aside, in his dying moments, Trayvon Martin gave voice to all of the Black men,  women and children whose humanity continues to be denied in a society that has long chosen to not listen to us.

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press). He is professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and the host of the Weekly Webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

The “Reasonable Fear” of a Black Male: The Trayvon Martin Tragedy

The “Reasonable Fear” of a Black Male: 

The Trayvon Martin Tragedy

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In 2008, 20/20 conducted an experiment to examine how people would respond to criminal activity.  Inside a New Jersey park, three white youths gleefully vandalized a car. Without concern for the people walking throughout the park, they destroy the car with a bat and spray paint.  In the course of the experiment, only a few individuals call the police or even challenge the kids, with some even joking around with them.  When 20/20 swapped out the three white youth for three black youth, the public response was drastically changed, with many more calls to the police.  Highlighting the ways race and criminality interact through stereotypes and daily behavior, the most telling aspect of the experiment resulted from an unplanned development.  As the white youths wreaked havoc on the car, three black youth waited in another car.  These boys, relatives of one of the black actors who were taking part in the experiment, were asleep.  In the first instance, the caller suggests that the boys looked like they were going to rob someone.  In a case of ‘sleeping while black’ there were two 911 calls (compared to one 911 call about the white youth).   

Given persistent stereotypes, news media and popular culture, and a culture of dehumanization, it is no wonder that the 20/20 experiment found that irrespective of behavior black youth convey fear and animosity driven by their presumed criminality, an experience dramatically different from that of white youth.  Writing about research on imagery and criminalization, Joe Feagin, in The White Racial Frame, highlights the profound issues at work here.  “These researchers conclude that the visual and verbal dehumanization of black Americans as apelike assist in the process by which some groups become targets of societal ‘cruelty, social degradation, and state-sanctioned violence” (p. 105).  From a history of slavery and lynching, up through the persistent realities of racial profiling, mass incarceration, and daily instances of violence, the connection between dehumanization and criminalization has been central to white supremacy. 

I thought about this experiment when I first heard about the murder of Trayvon Martin.  The connection became especially powerful after continually hearing references to “reasonable fear,” the fact that George Zimmerman called 911 because he saw a suspicious person in his gated community, and the purported “perceived threat”; all of this led me back to this study and the countless amount of research that illustrates the power and saturation of the “criminalblackman.”  As evident here, it is hard, if not disingenuous, not connect this case and the ideas of fear, suspicion, and threat (and whiteness as innocence), to dominant ideologies of race.

On March 12, 2012, Stanford Police Chief, Bill Lee announced that Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense fit with the evidence of their investigation.  During a press conference, he made this clear over and over again: “We don't have anything to dispute his claim of self defense at this point with the evidence.” He additionally defended the decision not to issue an arrest warrant because of a lack of probable cause: “Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don't have the grounds to arrest him.”   Given recent reports about the investigation, one has to wonder if this even possible.

Similarly, the news media has emphasized that Zimmerman had a bloody nose, that the back of his t-shirt was wet, and that reports indicate an argument all as potential explanation for what happen.  We can see an emerging narrative that explains (rationalizes/justifies) the situation as if an argument or even a “fight” justifies the use of a gun on an unarmed teenager.   

At the same time, likely responding to this growing anger about this injustice, the media coverage has increasingly emphasized the legal context.  In Florida, because of the “stand your ground law,” which Jeb Bush signed into law in 2005, individuals who believe they are under attack can use deadly force.  If a person feels in danger and if a person has “reasonable fear” they are legally allowed to use deadly force.  According Joëlle Anne Moreno, “under the new law, if you are not engaged in an illegal activity, you can stand your ground by ‘meeting force with force, including deadly force’ if you ‘reasonably believe it is necessary’ to prevent death, great bodily harm, or the commission of a forcible felony.”  In other words, if you reasonably believe you or others are in danger you are entitled and empowered to use force irrespective of the actual threat.  It is about belief and perception.

Yet, this same media that cites this law, that uses terms like “reasonable fear,” “danger” and “suspicion” has found limited space to talk about how race, stereotypes, and racism impact perceptions of fear, danger, and suspicion.   Natalie Jackson, the family’s attorney, makes this clear when she notes, “I don't know if the whole thing was a racial issue, it may have been a 'Zimmerman wants to be a hero' issue. It becomes racial because Zimmerman thought that black males with hoodies are criminals.”  In other words, how does, given ample research about the criminalization of black bodies, race impact what constitutes fear and suspicion?  Within the white supremacist imagination isn’t any fear of blackness reasonable given the sedimentation of criminalization and dehumanization?  

Michelle Alexander, in New Jim Crow, argues that the institutionalization and saturation of mass incarceration has created a society where the “prison label” and the stigma of criminality “exists whether or not one has been formally branded a criminal: “In this way, the stigma of race has become the stigma of criminality.  Throughout the criminal justice system, as well as in our schools and public spaces, young + black + male is equated with reasonable suspicion, justifying arrest, interrogation, search and detention of thousands of African Americans every year” (p. 194).  Trayvon Martin is clearly evidence of this reality not only in his murder but also in the handling of the struggle for justice in his name.  From Sean Bell to Oscar Grant, from Emmett Till to Robbie Tolan, it is all too familiar story, one that hopefully offers a different ending: JUSTICE.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will be published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.