Christ and Pop Culture
Every Monday in Citizenship Confusion, Alan Noble discusses how we confuse our heavenly citizenship with citizenship to the state, culture, and the world.
For more analysis from a Christian perspective, check out all our articles here: Christ and Pop Culture’s Coverage of the Trayvon Martin Tragedy.
Over the past few weeks, the tragic story of the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman and the authority’s poor handling of the case have dominated the media. I waited to write on this to see what further information might come to light. I waited not because I doubted that racism still exists in our communities and government, but because I recognize that tragedies like this one are often deceptively simple.But on Saturday night, several friends of mine shared a shocking picture on Facebook that changed my perception of the case and convinced me that I needed to write on it.
Here’s the Trayvon the Main Stream Media didn’t want us to see:
Why didn’t the media tell us about this side of Trayvon Martin? The, F-U-17-years-old-6’2″-Thug Trayvon? Is it because they want to divide our country over race? Cause they want to sell a sensational story? Or are they caught up in the lynch-mob?
Nope.
They didn’t use the thug picture because that’s not a picture of Trayvon Martin, at least, not the Trayvon Martin who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. It’s another black, male, kid named Trayvon Martin (who attends Myers Middle School, not Norland Middle or Highland Oaks Middle schools, as the recently killed Trayvon did). And his public pictures on Facebook fit nicely with The-Liberal-Racist-against-Whites-Media-Is-Biasing-Us-against-Zimmerman narrative.
Whether or not these images were shared out of ignorance, the results have been horrifying, but also revealing about a few ugly truths about race and public discourse in an Internet Age.
This picture was picked up and used on a number of smaller conservative blogs (which eventually removed the pictures and admitted their mistake), on a few white supremacist forums, and all over Facebook. The popular version of this image (shown above) came from a Facebook user named John David Lee Brown. His image had been shared over 300 times when I first saw it. Less than 24 hours later, it had been shared nearly 700 times. If I’m lucky, my post will get 1/20th as many shares as these racist, fake Trayvon pictures on Facebook.
If Facebook users have on average 100 friends, that means around 70,000 people were exposed to an image which deceptively claimed that the “hysterical Race Baiter” media has hidden the real Trayvon Martin from us and also implied that perhaps Zimmerman was justified in killing the boy, since he really was a thug!
70k people. And the worst part about it? Even if Mr. Brown removes the picture and admits his mistake, the vast majority of the people who saw and shared it will never know.
Some people were sick of all the media talk about racism. They suspected that Zimmerman was probably innocent. They saw an image of Trayvon on Facebook which “exposed” him as a pants-sagging, rebellious, probably violent black thug. The image confirmed their suspicions, so they clicked “Share” and the misinformation moved on to spread further racist stereotypes.
For example, here are some choice comments from these Facebook pictures:
“So over these stupid accusations of racism every time some criminal gets himself shot.”
“Ya know, when I saw the picture of this kid, I thought it was too bad that the only picture they could find was from when he was a little boy. Never thought about the propaganda angle. Now, I can see why our president thought if he had a son, this is what he’d look like!”
“From what I’m hearing now is that Trayvon was a thug.”
“a good reason to have a ‘neighborhood watch'”
I have two observations from researching this picture and its spread across the Internet.
1. The Internet is absurdly dangerous for civil public discourse. It is far too easy to spread lies and incredibly hard to challenge them. Christians should be skeptical, charitable, and cautious about what they read and trust online. Don’t assume you’re hearing the truth, especially when that truth tickles your ears.
For more on the unique challenge the Internet poses for accurately sharing information, see this feature I wrote on Muslims and Pig Racing or this post addressing the question, Where are all the Protests against Black-on-Black Violence?
2. Whether or not racism played into Trayvon’s death, it certainly has surfaced in the backlash against those calling for justice. This picture and its popularity is an example of that backlash. Many people cannot stand to hear about modern racism towards minorities. Any mention of race immediately brings comments about “the race card” or “race baiting.” Their narrative is that the white race is really the race that suffers the most racism in America. And so, they jump on any rumor or alleged evidence which might confirm their belief that Zimmerman is innocent. They probably would never admit to being racist, and perhaps they don’t even believe that they are racist, but their passionate denial that race figured into this tragedy and their willingness to accept any “evidence” to support that presupposition suggests otherwise.
I am not saying that we must call for Zimmerman’s immediate arrest or punishment, or that we should join with those who are reacting in extreme and unproductive ways to this tragedy–we should, however, keep our governing authorities to a high standard and refuse to accept anything less than a thorough and expedient investigation–but I am saying that Christians must be open to admitting and accepting the ugly reality of modern racism, wherever we find it.
For more analysis from a Christian perspective, check out all our articles here: Christ and Pop Culture’s Coverage of the Trayvon Martin Tragedy.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In