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kottke.org posts about Trayvon Martin

Ten Years Since Trayvon

a collage-style illustration of Trayvon Martin

A special issue of New York magazine tells the story of the first decade of the Black Lives Matter movement: Ten Years Since Trayvon. Zimmerman getting away with murdering Martin (and becoming a right-wing celebrity for it!) is still infuriating almost a decade later. Michael Arceneaux on The Day I Quit Believing:

The day George Zimmerman was acquitted was the end of a very brief moment in which I gave America the benefit of the doubt. Six days later, Barack Obama, the man responsible for that temporary suspension of disbelief, gave a speech that drove home for me how foolish I had been.

The president acknowledged the pain many of us felt, but, ever the peddler of hope, he stressed that “as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better.”

I didn’t believe it when he said it, and it sounds even sillier to me now so many years later.

The whole timeline and package of stories are essential reading.


Questlove: Trayvon Martin and I Ain’t Shit

The Roots’ Questlove has some powerful thoughts on the Trayvon Martin verdict:

I’m in scenarios all the time in which primitive, exotic-looking me โ€” six-foot-two, 300 pounds, uncivilized Afro, for starters โ€” finds himself in places where people who look like me aren’t normally found. I mean, what can I do? I have to be somewhere on Earth, correct? In the beginning โ€” let’s say 2002, when the gates of “Hey, Ahmir, would you like to come to [swanky elitist place]?” opened โ€” I’d say “no,” mostly because it’s been hammered in my DNA to not “rock the boat,” which means not making “certain people” feel uncomfortable.

I mean, that is a crazy way to live. Seriously, imagine a life in which you think of other people’s safety and comfort first, before your own. You’re programmed and taught that from the gate. It’s like the opposite of entitlement.

Reading about this case and the reaction to it has been a series of gut punches this week.