Monthly Archives: May 2012

Trayvoning: In Black and White

26 Saturday May 2012

Posted by in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Critical Thinking, Facebook, racist exploitation, Social Media, Trayvon Martin, Trayvoning

≈ 5 Comments

I took a bit of a hiatus from blogging. New baby daughter, other familial priorities plus being busy at work didn’t leave much time (or desire) to comment on the world’s madness. However…

I read that there is growing outrage, primarily among the American Negroes, over the latest social media fad: Trayvoning. Similar to “Tebowing”, this is where a person dressed in a hoodie, lies on the floor with a bag a skittles in one hand and an ice-tea in the other, signifying the murder of black teenager Trayvon Martin. For these Negroes, this is seen as disrespectful and mocking the death of Trayvon, especially since all (or most) of the particpants in Trayvoning are white (read here).

Personally, I see no real difference between this lastest fad and these same outraged American Negroes who I saw on t.v. and online, especially on Facebook, doning their hoodies, holding skittles and ice-tea, with the caption “I am Trayvon Martin“, at the time of the murder. The only difference is that these white people are late to the party!

At the time I remembered thinking: “leave it to Negroes to turn this tradegy into a fashion statement”… smdh. All these Negroes doning their $100 plus Tommy Hilfiger, DKNY, muti-billion dollar sports team or NCAA licensed hoodies as a sign of protest and/or solidarity with their victimized and murdered black brothers everywhere… meaning “everywhere in America”. Then of course, to be even more superficial, some would dress their babies and kids in the latest trendy Baby Gap, Phat Farm or similar corporate logoed hoodie and parade them as a symbol of endangered innocence.

Instead of providing free advertising to these multi-billion dollar corporations and thus helping them increase their profit margins, if you truly want protest racism and show solidarity to oppressed, victimized and murdered black men, why not do something substantial like setting a national day of protest for every black person in America to descend on Sanford Florida if they can, or hold a rally in front of your local police headquarters, to address these issues?

So why this outrage!? In this age of hyper-social media, American Negroes need to come to terms with the fact that they have no control or ownership over the marketing of their victimization… not that they ever did! Although historically in the U.S. civil rights struggle, African-Americans have been the most victimized, usually provide the inspirational leadership, as well as being the disposable fodder out on the front lines of the battle, one needs only to follow the money to see who benefitted most from their sacrifice… ’cause it certainly isn’t them! When Martin and Malcolm would no longer adhere to the “marketing plan” and moved from the local arena of civil rights into the global sphere of human rights, which at the time was much harder to control (not now with the advent of social media… another discussion for another post), it was time to make them in a word: “redundant”.

American society is at the height of dysfunction, delusion and confusion… and everyday it’s climbing higher! This is a society where White America is obsessed with anti-bullying campaigns on one hand, while on the other it produces a hit movie, The Hunger Games, which glamorizes white youths in a fantasy world where they hunt and murder each other for glory. This is a society where American Negroes are outraged about a social media fad, while the real life daily murders of young black men are glorified, encouraged and commercialized in movies, music as well as in social media… with these same Negroes as the primary consumers of this self destructive product.