Trayvon Martin: Racial Discrimination In America

In February 2012, a 28-year-old man followed a 17-year-old youth and killed him on a residential street. The youth hadn’t done anything; he did not commit a crime, and he hadn’t provoked the older man. He was shot simply because he seemed “suspicious.” This was the story of Trayvon Martin’s death in Sanford, Florida at the hands of George Zimmerman (Cooper). Zimmerman, the killer, is a white man while Trayvon was an innocent black youth. While Trayvon’s death was a tragedy, it was also an example of violent racism in the United States. Racial discrimination affects the way Americans think about race violence and relations, and should be eradicated as soon as possible.

Besides Trayvon Martin’s death, there have been several occurrences of race violence in America. One such event was the death of Michael Brown Jr. at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson. According to Wilson’s testimony, Brown

Likewise, the issues mentioned in Baltimore are very similar to those of over 50 years ago, especially through the eyes of Malcolm X. Malcolm frequently found problems in his society where most white people did not. For example, in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm details the story of his life, which had in part been dedicated to human rights. In a passage from his autobiography, the police brutalized a fellow Muslim in the Nation of Islam. “Of these bystanders, two happened to be Muslim brother Johnson Hinton and another brother of Temple Seven... They didn’t scatter and run the way the white cops wanted. Brother Hinton was attacked with nightsticks. His scalp was split open…” (X 238). The police, who had been breaking up a fight between two black people, attacked Hinton merely because he did not run away as ordered. The police’s use of violence suggests that he believed it was acceptable for him to start violence, but not other