Trayvon Martin and the Political Imagination

Title

Trayvon Martin and the Political Imagination

Authors

Lester Spence

Files

Description

The shooting of Trayvon Martin has captured the nation’s interest. Many have used his murder to examine and complicate our understanding of the contemporary “post-racial moment”. However Lester Spence (Johns Hopkins University) suggests that the construction of the Trayvon Martin narrative as well as the resulting political events that stem from it truncate rather than expand our political possibilities. How might we use this tragic event to not only complicate our understanding of what it means to be a citizen in the Obama era, but to take more “personal moral responsibility for democracy” as Ralph Ellison says?

Publication Date

4-25-2012

Keywords

Trayvon Martin, "post-racial moment, " race, racism, Obama era, shooting, gun violence

Disciplines

Inequality and Stratification | Race and Ethnicity | Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance

Trayvon Martin and the Political Imagination
COinS