Trayvon Martin Case Summary

Introduction In 2012, a young man named Trayvon Martin was gunned down in Florida by neighborhood patroller George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was unarmed, but because of his “thuggish” and “suspicious” attire, he was killed in cold-blood. When taken to trial, Zimmerman was found not guilty. This case and the unpopular verdict created a racial divide between the nation, or exposed the divide that had already existed. Fast forward two years later. Black, unarmed teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by White policemen Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. This town soon became a town of terror and violence as family, friends, and average citizens were distraught by the indictment of Darren Wilson. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Ohio, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was gunned down by the police after reports of him playing around with a gun. When the policemen check Rice’s gun, they learned that it was a toy gun.
In 2015, TIME Magazine released their monthly issue with an unusual image: a black and white picture of a Black man running from a group of law enforcement officers dressed in war attire. Why …show more content…
It created the notion that policemen were not here to protect and serve but instead cause fear. Protests broke out all over the nation; some peaceful, others violent and destructive. Black people decided to stop being victims and start standing up for what is right: their rights. Thus, the “Black Lives Matter” movement was formed.
In 2014, ABC network announced a new prime-time show to their Wednesday line-up called Black-ish, an American television show about “a family man who struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood” . While this show is regularly a comical one for viewers to enjoy, the writers decided to take on a worldlier approach in an episode called