Photo by Lysanne Larose
This photo was taken this week at the McGill Law Faculty, in response to the death of Trayyvon Martin, a 17-year-old boy who was shot dead while walking home from school. The “Wear Your Hoodie Days” at McGill were organized by Ngozi Okidegbe, a fellow 1L at the faculty. She explains her motivation on mobilizing McGill students here.
Of course, campaigns like this are never enough. and I’ve heard of criticisms like: are we making activism seem too easy? How do we account for the fact that a hoodie worn by affluent, middle-class, and white bodies will never appear suspicious, while a black skin under a hoodie will inevitably look more suspicious? Nevertheless, I think it’s an important start, to make people aware that racial profiling is alive and well in our very own backyard as well – I’m talking about incidents like a Montreal driver getting pulled over because his “Quebecois-sounding name” supposedly did not “match” his black skin.
AMC
/ April 2, 2012I think it’s also important to acknowledge how media coverage has represented Trayvon as a child, not as a teenager, widely circulating pictures of him that are several years old. He was not shot walking home from school. This perpetuates the idea that a black teenager could thus be construed as a legitimate threat, which is adding a whole other level of profiling to this case. Trayvon’s death is senseless, even if Zimmerman’s questionable account of the events of that evening are in fact true.
The hysteria surrounding this case is clouding people’s judgment (e.g. Spike Lee retweeting the address of an elderly couple as Zimmerman’s, subjecting this couple to hate mail and harassment) and is not producing productive discourse in many forums, namely the “mainstream” media, which is preoccupied with how this case may incite race riots, which only serves to enforce the idea that black youth are to be feared.
RK
/ April 3, 2012Thanks AMC, and I apologize for my misstatement in this post about the circumstances of the shooting. Another thing that’s bothered me about the mainstream media coverage is how it seems to focus so much on Trayvon’s status as a “good” student, as though his life would’ve been worth less if he weren’t – or that he was somehow going against the grain of “normal” black teenager’s status to be an exemplary student.