Trayvon Martin: Another Victim Of Black Male Demonization

                I’d been reticent to write on one of the salient issues of the Trayvon Martin case- African American males as “boogeymen” – because D.L. Hughley had already written an excellent commentary on this issue.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this issue is profound, broad and multifaceted enough to require a great deal more reflection and analysis.

                My first reaction to the lack of indictment in a case that cried out for legal action, took me back to Hurricane Katrina.  Reports on the aftermath of the disaster were heavily filtered through the media’s racism.   Newspapers ran two almost identical photographs of a Black couple and a White couple wading through water, carrying bags of items, presumably groceries, etc.  The caption under the White couple read that they were carrying items they had found.  The caption under the Black couple read that they were carrying items they had looted. 

                Negative stereotypical images exploded from the media so profusely that when the National guardsman finally arrived, and the throngs of desperate Black Hurricane victims ran to them for assistance, the guardsmen wanted to shoot them!    Had it not been for the presence of an African American commander, they would have shot these fellow Americans they were sent to help.  Fox News would have been obligated to provide context for the tragic, though completely understandable, shooting of the “rioting” African Americans:  What would YOU (White audience) do if a horde of wild eyed Negros charged at You??

                The pervasiveness of the demonization of black males throughout the American “justice” system cannot be overstated.  This demonization provided the rationale for the brutal beating of Rodney King, as well as the subsequent acquittal of the policemen involved.  We witnessed it at work during the police “investigation” of the Stuart murder case in Boston in which Charles Stuart killed his pregnant wife and blamed it on a Black man.  You may recall that the Boston PD more closely resembled a Southern lynch mob than a professional police department in that case.  The reaction of the police in cases in which Blacks have been falsely accused by Whites  has been virtually Pavlovian, thanks to the demonization of Black males.

                The implications of this demonization reach far beyond the criminalization of Black males, all the way the White House itself.  The single greatest criticism of President Obama from people who otherwise support him (like me) has been his apparent obsequiousness to his Republican adversaries.   There is no need to document here the fact that Obama has been disrespected repeatedly like no other president before him.  Yet, time and time again, he has extended the olive branch to his adversaries, only to be beaten with it.  While there are a number of factors involved in this scenario (including his personality) one cannot ignore the fact that Obama is under enormous pressure to avoid the “angry Negro” label.  The same American mythology that created all the reasons African Americans have to be angry, also dictated that under no circumstances should Blacks show any anger.

                This demonization of African American males originated as a justification for slavery.  Not only was the Black man inferior, but he was bestial as well.  The more horribly African Americans were treated, the greater the rationale.  This demonization was hardly limited to the Black male.  The sexually repressed slave masters, whose wives were only to be touched for procreation, found relief in the rape of African American women.  That rape was justified, of course, by projecting a definition of sex-craved heathens onto the victims.  (This dynamic was touched on ever so briefly in the otherwise absolutely brilliant tome, Embodiment: Toward a Christian Sexual Ethic, by James B. Nelson.)

                Perhaps the greatest tragedy flowing from this demonization is not the treatment of African Americans by the media or the judicial system, but rather the fact that so many of our people have been conditioned to believe it about themselves.   Our communities are more dangerous than most war zones because so many of our young people act in accordance with this demonized definition of themselves.  W.E.B. Dubois once wrote that “To be a Negro is to see oneself through the eyes of those who despise you.”

                Something positive could be gained from the Trayvon Martin tragedy if our leaders were to push for some sort of symposium on this demonization of Black males.  The conversation within Black America, as well as with the larger community must change.  Despite the incredible resources of those who continue to demonize us, we must somehow, some way fight back.  We owe it, not just to the family of Trayvon, but to all of the grieving mothers who have lost their children to this nonsense.