Pursuing Trayvon Martin

Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics

Edited by George Yancy, Janine Jones

Not available to order

Publication date:

08 November 2012

Length of book:

308 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739178836

On February 26, 2012, seventeen-year-old African American male Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a twenty-eight-year-old white Hispanic American male in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman killed Martin in a gated community. Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics, featuring a new preface by editors George Yancy and Janine Jones written after the June 2013 trial, examines the societal conditions that fueled the shooting and its ramifications for race relations and violence in America.

Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics attempts to capture what a critical cadre of scholars think about this potentially volatile situation in the moment. The text addresses issues across various thematic domains that are both broad and relevant. Pursuing Trayvon Martin is an important read for scholars in the fields of philosophy, criminal justice, history, critical race theory, political science, critical philosophies of race, gender studies, sociology, rhetorical studies, and for anyone hungry for critical ways of thinking about the Trayvon Martin case.
'Wrong time, wrong place' goes the classic expression. But the problem is that if you’re the wrong race, any time and place can be wrong. Under white supremacy, the black body brings its own wrongness with it, rewriting the rules for what counts as reasonable suspicion, standing your ground, and justifiable self-defense. These urgent and timely essays on the Trayvon Martin killing expose in unflinching detail the racialized norms of white social cognition, and why justice demands their revision.