On Whose Ground? Racialized Violence and the Prerogative of “Self-Defense” in the Trayvon Martin Case

This essay argues that public discourse surrounding the Trayvon Martin case is symptomatic of an abandonment of a once vibrant rhetorical tradition of Black self-defense. This tradition imagined violence as a potential source of agency for Black Americans and other marginalized populations, and recognized the capacity of White supremacy to exercise violence on racialized bodies and communities. Instead, activists in both camps of the Martin case, as well as media outlets covering it, embraced the enthymemes of a “war on crime” discourse that codes Black violence as intrinsically at odds with the aims of civil society. By turning to mainstream and activist media coverage in the aftermath of the shooting, I describe how competing discourses on Martin's death shared an investment in false alternatives regarding race and violence. Audiences were asked to choose between Martin the angelic child victim and Martin the violent “thug,” a dichotomy that stifled deliberation regarding the complex role of violence in antiracist traditions.