The Trayvon Martin Tragedy: Pop Culture Plays a Role

[Lucy Goosey]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rashad-robinson/trayvon-martin-tragedy_b_1390171.html

Rashad Robinson
Executive Director, ColorOfChange

Holding a can of iced tea and wearing a hooded sweatshirt should not arouse fear or suspicion in any American neighborhood. But popular culture's influence on the public is strong and leads people like Zimmerman to view the mere presence of a black youth as cause for alarm -- and in this case, deadly action. This is hardly surprising when primetime crime procedurals inundate us with storylines featuring young black men committing violent acts and dealing drugs. Movies routinely portray the American black experience as poor, violent and terrifying. When black men appear in the news, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, the stories are almost completely restricted to sports or crime coverage. Our society views young black men as inevitable criminals that we should lock away before they have a chance to do real damage. Geraldo Rivera serves as a perfect, if disgusting, example of how our country views young black men when he said, "No one can honestly tell me that seeing a kid of color with a hood pulled over his head doesn't generate a certain reaction -- sometimes scorn, often menace."

But the anger we feel over the loss of Trayvon cannot die with him; our work is only beginning. We must repeal "Stand Your Ground" laws so they are no longer used to protect people like Zimmerman who take the lives of innocent citizens. To change the law, we must first change minds. It is the responsibility of people like you and me to stop accepting distorted images of young black men in our popular culture and to transform the way our society views and treats black boys. Lasting change, however, requires our work to go beyond reforming any individual law to reaching hearts and minds and dealing with the underlying bias current cultural norms reinforce.