Close Reading #1

The language utilized in the accounts of the murders of Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown reveal how African-American youths in America are dehumanized in order to justify their deaths. Fourteen year old Emmett Till is described as looking “like a man” (Huie), implying that his brutal death over a childish flirtation towards the white Carolyn Bryant is somehow excusable because he seemed older.

That sentiment is echoed again in Trayvon Martin’s case, in which Martin is described as a “real suspicious guy … [who] looks like he’s up to no good ” (Botelho). Like with Till, Martin is twisted from a child into an older man, someone who “deserves” whatever judgement white adults enact against them where other, whiter children would have received mercy.

The idea of black children being undeserving of the title of “child” appears in Michael Brown’s case as well , where his killer, Officer Darren Wilson, portrays Brown as mindlessly aggressive and a “demon” (Missouri v. Wilson). Wilson repeatedly stresses that he felt powerless against such a monstrous force as eighteen year old Mike Brown, though Wilson is a trained police officer who was holding a gun. The subtext is clear here, as it is in the Till and Martin cases: skin color takes precedence over everything, even childhood.