Trayvon Johnson Short Story

As I witnessed the videos and sound recordings of the police killings of these Black youth: Trayvon Martin, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Darnisha Harris, I, too, lost hope for racial equality and developed a fear of law enforcement that still exists to this day. These emotions are quite common amongst Black youth, yet the presence of such is

One night in a Florida gated community a young man named Trayvon Martin, was walking down the streets of a mostly white community, stopped by George Zimmerman who was a neighborhood watch resident.Mr. Martin was stopped for being “suspicious” and “up to no good” according to Mr.Zimmerman. Trayvon was fatally shot by Mr. Zimmerman out of “self defense”. Really “Self defense” he was carrying a bag of skittles and a Arizona Tea. This young man was nothing but harmless but was victimed for being African-American.George Zimmerman would rather later stand trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin was found not guilty,until April 2012 he was found guilty of second degree murder.Although there are positives and negatives of this argument, the Black Lives

James Weldon Johnson author of The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man discusses the issue of race and identity in his short story. Writing in first person Johnson follows the unnamed protagonist from childhood up to adulthood, he demonstrates in different areas how this unnamed man handles his identity and his race as colored. The fact that he remains nameless throughout the story shows more of the connection between identity and race. During the course of the story Johnson’s protagonist makes the argument that identity is highly based upon the race of the individual. His journey from adolescence to adulthood as a colored man seems to play a keen role in the jobs he makes and the people he interacts with, ultimately defining his identity based on his race.

In the past years we have seen many riots and debates over the racism and inequalities in our criminal justice system. We have heard story after story, and watched video after video of police brutality and racism in America. We saw the unfair outcome of the Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin case. When George Zimmerman followed Treyvon Martin, a seventeen year old African American boy who was walking around the neighborhood, just because he looked suspicious to him. Even after notifying the police, Zimmerman followed Martin and ended up shooting him, after Zimmerman had hung up with the dispatcher who told him they did not need him

In Outgrowing Juvenile Justice, Michael Jonas (2001) raises several important issues concerning juvenile justice policies and practices. In discussing Jamal Vick, a range of youth crime issues surfaces, including:

Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.

The incident involving George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was one that caught the interest of many Americans. Trayvon Martin, a young 17-year-old African American boy, was shot and killed during a dispute between him and George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic man. Zimmerman was the neighborhood watch coordinator for the community and he called the police after Martin was acting very suspicious by looking into people’s windows. Zimmerman claimed he acted out of self defense and he also had head injuries. This case is such a big deal because many people believe that Zimmerman only shot him because he was an African American. One aspect in society that is a prominent issue is racism or racial profiling. This case shows the controversy over racial profiling in America. This also ties into the theoretical perspective of critical race theory. Critical race theory involves inequality related to racism. The George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin case accurately represents the issue of racial profiling in society today.

Trayvon Benjamin Martin was born February 5, 1995, he was a seventeen (17) year old African American male who lived with his mother in Miami Gardens, Florida. Trayvon had recently been suspended from his school Krop Senior High School, for a period of ten (10) days from a discovery of the residue of drugs that had been located within his book bag ("Trayvon Martin," 2016).

Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Sean Bell and unfortunately so much more were senselessly murder because of the color their skin. “Garner, an asthmatic father of six, was seen yelling, “I can’t breathe!” 11 times before losing consciousness and No one have been charged criminally” (Citation). In this quote from Eric Garner, he is fatally choked to death by a police officer , he yelled that he couldn't beneath and officer continued to applying pressure to his neck. George Zimmerman, had been found not guilty of shooting dead an unarmed black 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin (Citation). In this quote from cnn a unarmd teenage was walking home and George shot him dead and George Zimmer was acquitted from all criminal charges. The destruction of black lives needs to stop immediately. African Americans are being hunted down and they are using the color of their skin as a way of avoiding responsibility of their actions. African Americans should not worry about being killed when they walk down the street to buy some

A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.

Black on white or white on black crime will always happen until black and whites can come together as a whole and not individuals. After slavery there was a group formed name the Ku Klux Klan also know as the “KKK”. The KKK were very known for riding around on horses with whips or guns hanging others particularly blacks and burning down crosses and churches. Around the 1920’s the Ku Klux Klan was ended but the crime between blacks and whites did not. February 2012 a black teenage boy named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a white neighborhood watch participant while walking back home from the store carrying a bag of skittles and a sweet tea. Since the Trayvon Martin shooting, multiple white police shooting amongst black victims have been

I just want to take a second and have all of you guys close your eyes and think, think about you walking down the street drinking Dutch bros and your stopped by a police officer because of the color of your skin. How would you feel, (pick another person at random). Ok so imagine the people that have been victim to this, men and women of color who were stopped frisked, beaten and thrown into jail. Or the families who have lost love ones to corrupt, ignorant police officers. It’s sad. And it happens on nearly an everyday basis. Actually, a black man or black woman are killed about every 28 hours by law enforcement. Now isn’t that heartbreaking. Studies are shown that the legal system targets black and Hispanic men and women, and their communities. Another thing is that black and Hispanic people are given harsher punishments than white people for the same or similar offences. This study has been proved accurate multiple times. A 2012 research from washingtonpost.com that white people comprise about 62% of the U.S population and are victim of 49% of fatal police shootings. And black people comprise about 13% of the total U.S population and are victim to approximately 24% of all fatal police shooting. Black men and women have 2.5x more chances of being shot and killed by law enforcement and 5x more chances of being shot and killed if unarmed. 14% of monthly drug users are

act in the same way without fear of the law. The system in place globally implies that certain

Imagine. It’s a dark February night in Miami. You step out to your local convenience store to grab a couple of snacks. On your way home, you realize someone is following you. After you confront the person, a scuffle breaks out, and it results in your parents having to bury you at a cemetery. This was the unfortunate story of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. Martin was killed walking home from the local convenience store only armed with a bag of skittles and an iced tea. After being followed George Zimmerman, a local neighbourhood watch volunteer, Martin decided to confront Zimmerman. The end result leaving Trayvon Martin dead and George Zimmerman a free man. The story of Trayvon Martin proves the point that racism will is still alive and

Some may ask how do we manage, some may ask what is it like, and then some may ask do we wish that we can switch races? In my opinion those Questions answered every day in the most unnoticed, silent ways. But this isn’t about my opinions or about my beliefs about this society and how they treat our kind. This is about the truth, the truth that everyone is so scared to bring up because they think it’s just going to cause even more problems than where it 's at right now. Well I’m here to say that it shouldn’t be that way. I’m here to say that all the cops who shot down multiple black people, innocent black people at that. And on top of that those cops end up getting off without getting locked up. There were a total of 1,134 black people killed by the hands of law enforcers in the year of 2015. Also from what I’ve read that 1 of 65 black males deaths are from police brutality or shootings, some never discovered. So you can’t tell this country doesn’t have a problem.