{"id":36651,"date":"2014-06-08T22:01:40","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T22:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36651"},"modified":"2016-12-30T22:03:35","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T22:03:35","slug":"if-i-had-a-son-hed-look-like-trayvon-troubling-the-visual-optics-of-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36651","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIf I had a son, he\u2019d look like Trayvon\u201d: Troubling the Visual Optics of Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf I had a son, he\u2019d look like Trayvon\u201d: Troubling the Visual Optics of Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Flow<\/a>
\nVolume 17, Issue 9<\/a> (2013-03-28)<\/p>\n

Isabel Molina-Guzm\u00e1n<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies; Associate Professor of Latina\/o Studies; Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies
\nUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign<\/em><\/p>\n

On February 26, 2013, the one year anniversary of the shooting of Trayvon Martin<\/a> in Sanford, FL<\/a> by George Zimmerman<\/a>, I stare at the beautiful face of Trayvon Martin on my television screen and online news feed. I study his cinnamon brown skin, big teddy bear brown eyes and long black lashes, trimmed tight curly black hair, well-sculpted nose and full lips. I hear the invisible and terrified cries for help, the shot, and the silence.<\/p>\n

I am racially black and I am of Puerto Rican and Dominican ethnic descent. And I see my father, uncles, cousins. I silently remember President Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> somber observation more than a year ago: \u201cIf I had a son, he\u2019d look like Trayvon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Problems with the Visual Optics of \u201cRace\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I remember being frustrated by the news narratives that categorize Martin as black and George Zimmerman as white simply because of the color of their skin. After all, if Martin could be the son of our first mixed race president or be my son, his identity should be more complicated than the color of his skin. Martin\u2019s gender, class, and ethnoracial complexities remain irrelevant \u2013 he was essentially, biologically, and categorically a black man. As a racial or ethnic identity, blackness remains static despite US Census reports that the black population is more racially and ethnically diverse that ever before with more than 25% of the growth among black Americans driven by immigration. Indeed Haitians are among Florida\u2019s largest immigrant population.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, who is defined as black in the United States continues to be defined by the problematic rules of biological hypodescent<\/a> \u2013 the one drop rule<\/a> that defines anyone with one drop of \u201cblack blood\u201d as black. How that \u201cone drop\u201d is often determined is by the visual resonances of blackness; and, Martin \u201clooks\u201d black.<\/p>\n

Amidst civil rights protest calling for Martin\u2019s murder to be classified as racial profiling and a hate crime, the story becomes more complicated and more troubling…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf I had a son, he\u2019d look like Trayvon\u201d: Troubling the Visual Optics of Race Flow Volume 17, Issue 9 (2013-03-28) Isabel Molina-Guzm\u00e1n, Associate Professor of Media and Cinema Studies; Associate Professor of Latina\/o Studies; Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign On February 26, 2013, the one year anniversary of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8413,8,4481,20],"tags":[8843,10140,17468,10143],"class_list":["post-36651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-communications","category-media-archive","category-social-work","category-usa","tag-flow","tag-george-zimmerman","tag-isabel-molina-guzman","tag-trayvon-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46504,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36651\/revisions\/46504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}