Annotated Bibliography: The Trayvon Martin Case

Ponds, K. T. (2013). The Trauma of Racism: America’s Original Sin. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 22(2), 22-24.

                This article discusses the trauma that youth of color deal with when confronted with racism. It points out that although they may not know what is happening to them at the time, there is a lasting effect left on the victim. It also points out that many adults have this experience as well and do not know how to cope with it at times.

                I picked this article because of the topic of who was being racist during the altercation between Martin and Zimmerman. What is does is define what racism is and the increase of it since the election of President Obama.  With that, it ties into whether or not Zimmerman targeted Martin or if it was a random act.

Manke, C. (2010) Law & Violence, Law & Literature 22 Law & Literature 1

                The article Law & Violence talks about how the law is just another form of violence. It points out that there is sometimes injustice when dealing out “justice”. Also, it talks about discrimination as well.

                This article was chosen because of the reactions of the people after the verdict of the case. Many believe that the case opens the door for vigilante justice against people of color. There is a fairly broad topic in this article, but it does trace back into my topic

Jacobs, D., Malone, C., & Iles, G. (2012). RACE AND IMPRISONMENTS: Vigilante Violence, Minority Threat, and Racial Politics. Sociological Quarterly, 53(2), 166-187.

                This article compares the amount of lynching that happened long ago to the increase of incarcerations today. It touches base on the increase of republican presence and how that has attributed to the increase of incarcerations as well. It points out the relationship between race and severe criminal justice.

                The relevance of this article comes from the history of race relations in this country as well as the discussion on if the incarceration of so many black men is seen as justice. I wanted this article to give me more of an insight on the topic. This is a more focused topic, seeing how it compares history to now.

Banks, R. (2001) Race-Based Suspect Selection and Colorblind Equal Protection Doctrine and Disclosure. Stanford Public Law and Legal Theory Writing Paper Series 27 1075-1124

                The article mentioned above discusses how race comes into play when the suspect description comes in. It outlines how discrimination happens when there are people being arrested. The author discusses race as well as physical appearance.

                I chose this article because it relates to the topic in a major way when you talk about how someone is classified as a suspect. It relates to the stop-and-frisk policies of the police department and also on how the was someone looks can determine if they leave in handcuffs or not. It does have a broad topic, but not so broad that it loses its main focus of being about suspect description.  

 

The Killing Joke (Not the Graphic Novel)

The image I found was taken after the verdict of the Trayvon Martin case was announced. It was an image of George Zimmeran smiling and shaking hands. This photo was taken to show the reactions of the opposing side after such a powerful case. This is relevant to the Trayvon Martin case because there were many reactions and speculations as to why he was smiling. Was it because he was happy that he was found not guilty? Or was it because he got away with murder? So the question remains: what was the killing joke?

Point of View.

As I was doing my research on the Trayvon Martin case, I came to the realization that not everyone will tell the same story. Some sources you choose will give drastically different information where some will have a lot of perspective that others do not offer. Here, I have two different articles from different sources. One from USA Today and the other from Huffington Post. The first article is discussing how the event could have been avoided. In the article, a statement from a police officer reads: “The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely, if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog in an effort to dispel each party’s concern,” which pretty much states that basic steps could have been take to prevent the young man’s death. The second article is discussing how Zimmerman claimed Trayvon attacked him first. In a statement from the article, it reads: “According to what Zimmerman told local officers, he lost sight of the teen and was returning to his SUV when Martin approached him and they exchanged words. He said Martin asked if he had a problem, Zimmerman replied no and reached for his cell phone. He alleged that Martin said ‘well you do now’ and punched him in the nose.” These two articles have different motives and points of view. It is all based on who is writing and whatever motives are behind their reasoning. 

References:

Welch, W.M., Alcindor, Y., & Leger, D.L (2012, May) From Police report: Trayvon Martin shooting was ‘avoidable’ USA Today Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-17/zimmerman-trayvon-shooting-report/55046944/

Cadet, D. (2012, March) Trayvon Martin Case: George Zimmerman Told Police Teen Attacked Him Huffington Post Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/trayvon-martin-case-georg_n_1381322.html

Is it Just Black and White? A Summary of the Trayvon Martin Case

On February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman. This unleashed a lot of the tension that has been built up for years between both the black and white communities. The Martin family as well as various Civil Rights groups (including the NAACP) wanted to see Zimmerman found guilty, claiming that the shooting was racially motivated, Trayvon being African American and Zimmerman being white (later classified as white Hispanic), especially after the police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to follow Trayvon or approach him, and he did anyway. The Zimmerman defense wanted to be found not guilty, claiming that Trayvon was the aggressor in the conflict and Zimmerman acted in self defense. In the end, the verdict of the case was not guilty. This caused a lot of reactions, some even violent, all over the nation. There were stories of young African American men attacking their white counterparts while shouting “This is for Trayvon”, as well as the stories of police officers gunning down young black men. A group of young organizers named the Dream Defenders staged a sit-in in the Florida Capitol Building demanding a special session with legislatures to pass the Trayvon Martin Law, which repealed Stand Your Ground, a law that is already controversial because it seems to not work in the defense for people of color , ban racial profiling, and put and end to the School-to-Prison Pipline, keeping young people in schools and out of prison or dead. For a little over a month, and joined by various Civil Rights leaders and members, such as Harry Belafonte, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Talib Kweli, they led rallies and protests and even slept outside of Governor Rick Scott’s office. As stated earlier, this case has brought out a lot of the built up tension between the two communities and has seem to push them further away, keeping the racial gap between them open.

References

Shooting of Trayvon Martin, (n.d.). Wikipedia Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin

Dream Defenders, (n.d.). http://dreamdefenders.org/