Trayvon was a “good” kid, an athlete, an honors student, a beloved son, handsome, healthy, with pinchable cheeks, and eyes that smiled at us from every picture.
This image is a major reason why intense media attention to his death persists, along with the image of a model villain ably abetted by a police cover-up force and the questionable “stand your ground law.”
Why did the death of this particular young man raise such intense, persistent media and popular attention? Why, from a media/propaganda standpoint is this what one journalist described as ” a perfect storm of injustice”?
Pure and simple, it is because Trayvon was HUMANIZED in the media coverage of his murder and death. Travon was allowed the honor and dignity of having his loved ones speak to the nation (and world) about his “somebodiness”‘, of being portrayed based on the successes that he enjoyed in his short life and the good he managed to do in the world. Too often, and almost without exception, the deaths of our young black brothers and sisters elicit dismissive nods and cursory shrugs from the media. There is a flagrant assumption, one that lulls us from the cradle with media proliferated stereotypes, proclaiming that a black life is worth less. We EXPECT black life to end quickly, and more than often, we expect it to end at the hands of another black. This is where George Zimmerman plays his part. Because it was a non-black who killed young Trayvon, because it was caught on tape, because we KNOW who the villain is, and because of the apparent and complete innocence of the victim, the story has added value. This is why the media was willing to push Trayvon’s humanity, to sell us his worth.
But here lies the biggest tragedy of all:
ALL of our youth who have fallen victim to this epidemic of violence should be mourned, just as we’ve mourned Trayvon. Yes, even young men who were gang members. We should respect and value all human life, even when we don’t respect and value how those lives are lived. Even young those who were imperfect, not handsome, without pinchable cheeks, skittles or iced tea in their hands. Even our drug addicted. NONE of them deserve a premature death, to die before their lives had a chance to blossom. These kids, the ones who had not yet had a chance to be forgiven, or to undergo the transformation that invariably occurs in each of our lives. These sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, grandsons, neighbors, friends. Human beings. They are just as deserving of our flowers, our tears and most of all, our outrage.
The weekend that Trayvon was murdered, we lost the lives of far to many, right here in Chicago. They might have received a blip on the local news, or a red dot on the “homicide tracker” in our local paper, but that’s about it. There were no baby pictures, no tearful testimony given by grandparents, mothers and fathers…but there SHOULD have been. In fact, their deaths were so under the radar that we could not even find pictures of them to share on this blog.
What if, like Trayvon, the nameless legion of young victums were to be humanized by the media? What if we decided that every life lost was worth remembering? If your answer is yes,we propose the creation of a webpage for every city used specifically to HUMANIZE and MEMORIALIZE our fallen youth. A place to upload videos of the memories and testimony of family members, the baby pictures and goodbyes. Isn’t it the least we could do?
Did you see anything on television that talked about the life, family of Reginald Weems (25), just who exactly was Nathaniel Brown (24),
What could have become of Anthony Harrell (20),
Just who was George Howard (15),
Did any TV station or newspaper touch on the gone-too-soon life of 15 year old Albert Guyton ?
These are just some of the human beings who were all killed in Chicago over the course of that same tragic weekend. These names reflect just one weekend, in one city, in one country. Even though we do not know their stories, we can mourn their loss, as well. The media will never show us how they might have grown,or how they could have contributed to our human family. It’s up to us to keep the pressure on, the cameras rolling, the media focused on
JUSTICE FOR ALL THE TRAYVONS.
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