From Trayvon Martin To Andries Tatane

In the article, “From Trayvon Martin to Andries Tatane - Cognitive Dissonance and the Black Male Body [analysis],” author Gillian Schutte reflects on the ongoing issues of racial profiling and how many blacks are viewed as skin and surface level human beings. To connect this main point to a real life scenario, Schutte notes the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an innocent 17-year old boy who was walking home from a cafe, unarmed and posed no threat. Zimmerman, the gunman, viewed Martin as a threat, and proceeded to call the police five times to express his concern. Schutte addresses the issue that no matter where blacks are in society, they face danger from whites. Schutte describes how the people think the color of their skin determines their

With Schutte’s background in journalism, social activism, and writing, she is able to bring out emotions within the reader. Schutte understands the past events relating to racism and is able to discuss the issues with the reader, with an informed background. The wording within the article demonstrates Schutte’s passion on the subject, and uses words such as defenseless, shock and horror to express her opinions on the racism that blacks fear and encounter daily. Schutte includes personal stories of victims of racial profiling and harm to establish pathos. Schutte discusses the discrimination that blacks face daily: being judged based on the color of their skin and not their intellectual ability or personality. The author does not include any statistics, although does use logos by mentioning facts about previous racial discrimination stories that came into the news within the past few years. Schutte poses a question at the end, “When is this going to change?” regarding the horrific treatment towards minorities, such as Trayvon Martin and Andries Tatane. Although Schutte never forwardly mentions a specific conclusion, she believes that the bashing and harsh treatment of blacks has begun to slow down and the occurrences continue to keep repeating themselves. To make Schutte’s argument stronger, I believe she should have posed a potential solution,

I was already aware of the issue about discrimination towards blacks and how it relates to police brutality, but before reading this article, I never knew what the main reasons for the discrimination was. In 8th grade, I was supposed to write about a current event, something that had just happened recently. I chose the shooting of Trayvon Martin. At the time, this was a recent incident and it disturbed me that some man would willingly shoot and kill a teenager for no probable reason other than he found Martin “suspicious.” As the case went on to trial, I later found out that Zimmerman, the gunman, was found not guilty. With racial discrimination against minorities leading to unfair trials, made me realize that this is a bigger issue than I previously