During the Trayvon Martin Case, young Martin was made into a black icon much like Rodney King. With exception to certain blogs and the always angry Sean Hannity, the picture to the left was consistently used to portray Martin as a young innocent boy who was completely innocent of any wrong doing.
Celebrities, journalists, and activist alike took great care to paint Trayvon in a certain light. The People magazine to the left is a great example of this. They changed details of what he had on his person. Ignored his school history. Ignored his social media posts. Invented the term "White Hispanic" to describe George Zimmerman. They called anyone who questioned this narrative as being racist and believing in stereotypes of black youths. Despite the fact that the evidence would come to prove that Trayvon was the aggressor, this would be acknowledged by nobody. That is until Rachel Jeantel was interviewed by Piers Morgan and told a very different story from the typical Martin narrative. Even after the evidence came to light she was awarded a scholarship to attend any black college she wanted to and deemed a hero in her own right along with Trayvon being known as the martyr.
MSNBC's Al Sharpton organized protests nation wide to speak out against white on black violence using Martin's unfortunate death as the focal point. He spoke out against who he perceived as the racist George Zimmerman and gave lengthy sermons lamenting the death of Trayvon. Large portions of the black community who pay heed to people like Reverends Sharpton and Jackson saw Trayvon as a symbol for themselves. Trayvon was made out to be the innocent victim who was cruelly cut down by some WHITE Hispanic. I believe most of the media portrays the urban black community in this light. I believe many still want to hang the horrendous sins of the forefathers of white Americans on the heads of white Americans today. This is how I saw the media portray both Trayvon and the black community during those few months.
I completely agree with you on this. The media took one image of Trayvon and it blew up everywhere, it became the face for his trial. This image certainly didn't accurately portray who he was at the time of his murder, making him seem extremely innocent. This is a very unique thing to write about!
ReplyDeleteI agree. Once the media created this image it was interesting to see how many people got behind him as though they actually knew him. They spoke his name as though he was a close friend or relative. Rather than taking an opportunity to learn from the tragedy, Trayvon's death was used as a divisive tool. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteThis would have never been a news story without a PR firm. What about those hundreds of victims in Chicago and L.A. that we never hear about. Good imagery here to illustrate everything.
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