USA Africa Dialogue Series - Articulation or Intersectionality of Trayvon Martin?

'When I heard about the Trayvon Martin case, I thought that the real killer is the media that criminalizes black youth, black men and black people…. No one talks about the media spreading the poison that black people are dangerous to the extent that we do not see people as people but as trouble. Incarceration of the killer is not the solution if we fail to reeducate our people to recognize our common humanity.' – Mumia Abu-Jamal, Plenary conversation with Angela Davis at the Manning Marable Memorial Conference, St John's Cathedral, Columbia University, April 2012.

We live in authoritarian societies that are best described as control-freak societies. The control-freak ideology goes beyond the claim to a monopoly of force and violence by the state to include the authoritarianism of ordinary citizens who often internalize what Jacques Derrida (who observed that the word for justice and violence, Gewalt, is the same in German language) called 'the force of the law' and take it upon themselves to 'enforce' justice with emphasis on a final solution over not only total strangers but also over otherwise beloved family, friends and colleagues. As Mumia implied above, the control-freaks include scholars and journalists who spread the gospel of zero tolerance in otherwise democratic societies where tolerance should be taught more.

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Biko Agozino