The Deaths of Trayvon Martin: Photographs and Representation in Protest

In the weeks and months following the killing of Trayvon Martin protestors demanded the arrest of George Zimmerman, who admitted to killing Martin, but claimed self- defense. Officers disagreed over whether or not to hold Zimmerman in the immediate aftermath of the murder, but it was decided that Zimmerman could not be charged in accordance with Florida's Stand Your Ground law. Although this decision was reversed, the protests continued during the trial and in the aftermath of the eventual acquittal. These protestors often held photographs of the slain teen, Martin, while forwarding the declaration, "I am Trayvon Martin." The photographs and the identity claim deployed in concert by protestors create dissonance between what the audience knows cannot be the case and what the protestors insist is the case. Namely, we all know that none of these people is Trayvon Martin, nor can we recover the particular identity of Martin. The particular identity of the late Martin no longer exists in a physical sense, which makes the appropriation of that identity for the purpose of making a persuasive appeal a particularly complicated affair because it violates the conventional rhetorical configurations of mourning. Discussing Jacques Derrida, Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (2001) note that mourners generally seek modes of address "to" and "with" the dead (pp. 26-27), but typically not as or for the deceased. Commonly displayed photographs of Martin deployed in protest include Martin in his football uniform, peering out from a hooded sweatshirt, or in a Hollister t- shirt and each of these photographs indexes Martin's particular identity. Protestors indicate solidarity with Martin when they make the claim "I am Trayvon Martin" in conjunction with the deployment of the photograph. However, this mode of protest highlights particular problems that arise when protestors appropriate the identity of a victim. This essay examines the rhetorical consequences of forwarding the claim "I am Trayvon Martin," especially when simultaneously deploying a photograph of Martin. I argue that the identity claim curbs the persuasive potential for the photograph as a visual resource for argumentation in protest. The positive intent in uttering the claim "I am Trayvon Martin" conveys a shared suffering with Martin and his family. It expresses a feeling of the same vulnerability and violation the protestors argue Martin experienced. In short, the "I am" claim in the protests communicates solidarity amongst protestors who rhetorically construct Martin as a victim of a racially instigated killing. The mode of solidarity expressed in the Martin protest through the "I am," claim carries certain assumptions about the vulnerability of all citizens when law enforcement officials fail to act on behalf of an unarmed minor, who from all discernible evidence and accounts provided engaged in no behavior that warranted surveillance or monitoring on the part of Mr. Zimmerman. For some, privileging the word of an admitted killer by Florida law enforcement in place of a rigorous investigation of the death of an unarmed minor raises legitimate concerns about the validity of Florida's Stand Your Ground law. The law which authorities cited as a rationale for their decision not to take Zimmerman into custody until after a nationwide protest over Martin's death (Myers, 2012). Protestors immediately made connections to systemic racism in the past and these laws. Protestors in Chicago held posters with the visage of Emmitt Till next to the image of Martin, and another protestor held a sign saying, "Stand your ground laws: A new form of modern day lynching" (Bella, 2013). Lizette Alvarez (2013, para. 13) wrote in the New York Times-. Still, black pastors, sociologists and community leaders said in interviews that they feared that Mr. Martin's death would be a story of justice denied, an all-too common insult that to them places Trayvon Martin's name next to those of Rodney King, Amadou Diallo and other black men who were abused, beaten or killed by police officers. …