Essay On Trayvon Martin And George Zimmerman

Researched Argument Essay

Having accurate representation matters. Unfortunately, that is a concept that the media industry has not quite grasped. The portrayal of African Americans in the media, whether it be plays, television, news, movies, or social media has always been negative since the birth of slavery in the United States of America. Playing on the negative stereotypes of African Americans, white Americans have gone on to believe their false impressions of Africans Americans and this has hindered African Americans from gaining social change and respectability. False representation has connections to the Jim Crow Laws, the current statehood of African Americans and recent crimes involving African Americans. An effective solution has yet to be established despite efforts being made.

The

Trayvon Benjamin Martin was an African American boy born on February 5, 1995 in Miami, Florida. Serving a ten-day high school suspension, with his father, Trayvon Martin had gone to visit his father's fiancée’s townhouse at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida. On the evening of February 26, 2012, Martin walked to a convenience store to purchase an Arizona Tea and a bag of Skittles. The neighborhood in which Martin was walking through had been the victim of multiple robberies times that year. As Martin returned from the store, George Zimmerman, who was the neighborhood watch captain at The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, spotted Martin and decided to call the Sanford Police to report Martin for suspicious behavior. After being instructed to stay in his SUV by the police and to not approach the person, Zimmerman ultimately chose to defy those instructions and to take matters into his own hands. A physical altercation began between the two which left George Zimmerman with a bloody nose and blood coming from the back of his head and also left seventeen year-old Trayvon Martin shot in the chest and