Media and Minorities

128
Charlton McIlwain
But why is racialization important in this context? Why does the degree to
which news media frame stories about Black deaths at the hands of the state
or citizens acting on its behalf as racial matter? It is important, in news media
in particular, because race is always part of the politics of signification, of
the contested terrain of framing what race means. It is also important because
many parties (e.g., activists, policy makers, institutions, etc.) have a stake in
how race is defined during these moments of rupture, protest, and when the
disgusting underbelly of systemic, state-created or state-sanctioned racial injustice
is exposed and demands a response.
On 16 March 2012, 18 days after Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, the
New York Times’ columnist Charles Blow wrote a piece entitled “The Curious
Case of Trayvon Martin.” After recounting Martin’s mother’s story of how she
learned of her son’s death, Blow writes:
Trayvon’s lifeless body was taken away, tagged and held. Zimmerman was taken into
custody, questioned and released. Zimmerman said he was the one yelling for help.
He said that he acted in self-defense. The police say that they have found no evidence
to dispute Zimmerman’s claim.
He adds, almost as an aside: “One other point: Trayvon is black. Zimmerman
is not. Trayvon was buried on March 3. Zimmerman is still free and has not
been arrested or charged with a crime.”14
The purpose and consequence of racialization is demonstrated quite clearly
here. Several (though not many) news outlets and journalists had reported
on Martin’s death by this point. Blow’s article was among the first, if not the
first, to argue that this was not just another tragic accident or senseless confrontation
that went horribly awry. When Blow mentioned that Martin and
Zimmerman were of different races, he implied that the event was fundamentally
racial and that the tragedy was not just the death of a teenager but that
things always go this way in United States: Blacks are perpetually under suspicion,
and law enforcement typically gives White’s the benefit of the doubt. In
the end, Black people are doomed to rest in peace while Whites enjoy peace as
well as life, liberty, and the right to continue to pursue their happiness.
Racializing police misconduct is significant because it argues that the misconduct
is just a symptom of an underlying problem — racism. Thus the underlying
racial problem must be dealt with. While this may seem obvious in an
opinion piece whose author clearly intends to persuade, racial framing works
the same way in texts, such as news headlines, not intended to persuade. In
such contexts, racial framing, whether implicit or explicit, intentional or unmotivated,
influences how people think. Robert Entman makes this clear in
14 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/opinion/blow-the-curious-case-of-trayvon-martin.
html?_r=0.
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