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<div class="entry-date">July 03, 2013<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/03/black-skin-white-justice/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/03/black-skin-white-justice/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><big>The Racial Politics of Guilt</big></div>
<h1 class="article-title">Black Skin, White Justice</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by GEORGE CICCARIELLO-MAHER</div>
<div class="main-text"><big> </big>
<blockquote><big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>“A feeling of
inferiority? No, a feeling of not existing. Sin is black as virtue is
white. All those white men, fingering their guns, can’t be wrong. I am
guilty. I don’t know what of: but I know I’m a wretch.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>– Frantz Fanon</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>Let’s be clear
about one thing: George Zimmerman is innocent. Trayvon Martin was
guilty. We should be honest about this, but why stop there? Rachel
Jeantel is guilty too. Oscar Grant, <a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/01/09/oakland-s-not-for-burning/">murdered
by transit cop Johannes Mehserle in 2009</a>, was also guilty. Must’ve
been. So was Rodney King, so was Emmett Till for that matter. To be
black in America is to be <a
href="http://shelby.tv/video/youtube/QzVZf0mBGEs/keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-the-fight-against-the-new-jim-crow"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://shelby.tv']);">guilty
until proven innocent</a>, fundamentally suspect, always-already on
trial.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Condemned to Guilt </b></big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>“I have a phrase for this: the racial allocation of
guilt.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>–Fanon</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>A resounding chorus of indignation has emerged to rightly
resist the emphasis on Trayvon Martin in a trial that is ultimately
about his murderer. There is good reason for this impulse: a Google
search for “Rodney King trial” returns far more results than “Rodney
King beating trial.” While less than “Zimmerman trial,” the phrase
“Trayvon Martin trial” still returns an astounding number of results.
But it is unjustifiably idealist to simply insist that Trayvon Martin
is not on trial, that he was innocent, as if simply reciting this
optimistic incantation would make it true.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Trayvon Martin’s guilt is clear from the fact that it was
not only George Zimmerman, the vigilante, who served as judge, jury,
and executioner, but also an entire system that has done everything
possible to convict Martin and exonerate his killer. Let’s not forget
that, were it not for the immediate anger of thousands nationwide,
Zimmerman would almost certainly not even have been arrested (here his
fate directly echoes the arrest of Mehserle in Oakland after a night of
rioting).</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Trayvon Martin’s trial began on a rainy evening more than
a year ago, although it didn’t end there. It was then that Martin
emerged as an object of suspicion, out of place, his suspicious
presence indicated by Zimmerman in an assertion in the form of an
answer: “what are you doing around here?” Martin had appeared
“illicitly” in the words of <a
href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://truth-out.org']);">Fanonian
philosopher Lewis Gordon</a>, and the very fact of his presence was a
testament to a violent rupture with the established order to which
violence could be the only reply.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>But Martin’s trial did not end with his death, extending
instead from the report of marijuana in his urine and the widespread
publication of purportedly threatening images, in which the teenager
appears with gold teeth and, <i>gasp</i>, flipping the bird. It
extends of course into the Zimmerman trial itself, with testimony and
cross-examination swirling constantly around the suspicion and
suggestion that <i>Trayvon Martin fought back</i>. Never mind that one
had a gun and pursued while the other was unarmed and fled repeatedly.
>From the outset, Martin evidently did not enjoy the right of
self-defense, the legally-enshrined capacity <a
href="http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/theory_and_event/v015/15.3.ciccariello-maher.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://muse.jhu.edu']);">to
stand his ground when threatened</a>. To stand one’s ground is to have
ground to stand, and those inherently suspicious people have none.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>To be always-already guilty is to be, as in the <i>damnés
</i>of Fanon’s strangely translated title, <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802141323/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);"><i>The
Wretched of the Earth</i></a>, both worthy of condemnation and already
suffering it. The function of this guilt far exceeds simply providing
an alibi for murder in individual cases. Just as Fanon once argued that
you cannot torture and brutally exploit a people without first
dehumanizing them, it would be difficult to conceive of the
incarceration of two million people, the crushing poverty of most black
Americans, and the systematic justification of police scrutiny and
violence if we didn’t already believe that such people were somehow <i>less
than human</i>.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Force Presumed Legitimate </b></big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Reflecting on the 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the L.A.
Riots, <a
href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/9008-of-illicit-appearance-the-la-riots-rebellion-as-a-portent-of-things-to-come"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://truth-out.org']);">Gordon
identifies</a> a “racial grammar” that we see playing out again in the
Zimmerman case. If Trayvon Martin’s appearance was itself violent to
the white supremacist order, then like Rodney King, his every move
would need to be read in a way that retroactively sketches this picture.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>What was Rodney King’s moving body but one that, by
definition, was without words – and yet still, somehow, threatening –
as he was being beaten to the ground? And how was it possible to
determine excessive force when the police officers’ use of force was
presumed legitimate? … Thus, when the jurors – most of them white, one
Asian-American and one Hispanic/Latino – in Simi Valley were instructed
to determine whether excessive force was used against King, what else
could they have determined when the force was already presumed
legitimate?</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The echoes of Rodney King are astounding, but only to
those who haven’t been paying attention to the fact that the pattern is
all-too-common. Aggressor(s) not entirely white but reduced to it, jury
not entirely white but excluding blacks. Permission thus given for
acquittal, the strategy simply unfolds according to its internal logic
like a self-propelled machine, with no need for the external “racist”
hand to direct it.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Just as Rodney King <i>was </i>ultimately put on trial,
his every freeze-framed image embedded within a structure of meaning
that exceeded him, to make <i>him </i>the aggressor, to make <i>him </i>the
violent one, so too with Trayvon Martin. This is why Zimmerman could
stand his ground while Martin could not, why any suggestion of struggle
by the unarmed victim against an armed perpetrator is currently being
deployed to reinforce his guilt.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>As the medical experts are called to pore over details
that might possibly be consistent with aggression from Martin. The
legitimacy of Zimmerman’s murderous violence was perfectly clear in a
defense question put to <a href="file://localhost/watch">the medical</a>
expert Lindzee Folgate who examined the aggressor the next day:
“Stopping the attack allowed him to survive it, would you agree?”
Rather than refuse to answer a question she was in no way qualified to
respond to, Folgate answered: “It could have, yes.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>To the extent that the prosecution insists that Trayvon
Martin didn’t struggle, it has given up the game from the outset. We
can only hope, sincerely and resolutely, that when pursued and attacked
by George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin <i>did fight back</i>, that after
attempting to avoid and evade Zimmerman he <i>did</i> finally stand
his ground. Such hopes are in many ways hopeless, however. Frederick
Douglass’ fight with Covey aside, black bravery has rarely paid off, as
<a
href="http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Struggle/dp/1400030617"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);">Richard
Kluger wrote</a> of Joseph Albert DeLaine, a black man violently
persecuted and harassed under Jim Crow:</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>They stoned the church at which he pastored. And fired
shotguns at him out of the dark. But he was not Job, and so he fired
back and called the police, who did not come and kept not coming… Soon
after, they burned his church to the ground and charged him, for having
fired back that night…</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>All of this happened because he was black and brave…</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Rachel Jeantel on Trial</b></big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote><big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>“during and
since Reconstruction times, the courts in the South have been used
largely as instruments for enforcing caste rather than securing
justice.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>- W.E.B. Du Bois</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>“Yes I must
watch my diction because that’s how they’ll judge me. He cant even
speak French properly, they’ll say with the utmost contempt.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>- Fanon</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Fanon was clear about the manifold connections between
language and white supremacy, the way in which the authentically spoken
word was an unreachable and moving bar for the colonized and
racialized: no matter how <i>well </i>they spoke, they would be able
to truly claim the French language as their own. This much was clear
from Rachel Jeantel’s time on the stand, and the mocking of her speech
both inside and outside the courtroom made it perfectly clear that, no
matter how well she communicates, this language is by definition not
hers.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>That she should be mocked by other black people in a
string of embarrassed Twitter tirades would hardly surprise Fanon
either, since imposed guilt is so often folded backward into the self
as a guilt complex, only to be projected onto others who are “too
black,” “too ghetto,” or even an example of “<a
href="http://www.elisabethepps.com/stop-defending-rachel-jeantel/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.elisabethepps.com']);">when
keeping it real goes wrong</a>.” As with Bill Cosby’s increasingly
angry outbursts, there is no shortage of those who seek to blame
structural racism on the behavior of its victims.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>But it’s worth emphasizing more specific and local
reference-points for Jeantel’s testimony, namely the sort of Jim Crow
justice that resonates in courts across the country today. Under formal
Jim Crow, blacks could not testify against whites, and their testimony
was always suspect in general. Against the predominant narrative that
court justice gradually replaced the rough justice of the mob, Du Bois
penned the words above at the height of Jim Crow to insist how little
had truly changed. Today we could add that, while formal restrictions
on testimony have been lifted, the suspicion remains.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>It’s not only Jeantel’s treatment on the stand that echoes
Jim Crow justice, but also the broader context of the case. According
to one observer of this ostensibly outdated system: “<a
href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bIN1gR92_SIC&pg=PA203"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://books.google.com']);">when
a white man kills a Negro</a>… it is hardly considered murder. When a
Negro kills a white man, conviction is assured…” We don’t need to
predict Zimmerman’s fate to know how much this applies today:
conviction rates, <a
href="http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/vera/race-and-ethnicity-in-prosecution-first-edition.pdf"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','download','http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/vera/race-and-ethnicity-in-prosecution-first-edition.pdf']);">selective
prosecutorial strategies</a>, and the imposition of the <a
href="http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=54"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.deathpenalty.org']);">death
penalty</a> speak volumes.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>For those who would immediately reject such
interpretations and comparisons as remnants of the past (much like the
recently gutted Voting Rights Act), it hardly needs reminding: this is
a case about a young black man who was hunted down and killed in cold
blood.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Of “Creepy Ass Crackas” </b></big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>If Trayvon Martin’s trial is about his hoodie, his gold
teeth, his ominous middle finger, his possible marijuana use, Rachel
Jeantel’s trial is about her appearance, her “bad attitude,” and her
use of language. All aspects of the trials of both intersect in the
uproar about the phrase, allegedly offered by Martin to describe
Zimmerman and relayed to the court by Jeantel: “creepy ass cracka.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Against the effort of defense attorney Don West to mock
and humiliate her, to discredit and shame her into submission, less
remarked is the way that Rachel Jeantel stood her own ground on the
stand, and at no moment was her strength so clear and uncommon as with
the term “cracka” itself. Facing aggressive cross-examination, Jeantel
told West that it was Martin’s description of the man following him
that initially made her “think it was racial.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>But confronted with West’s predictable strategy of blaming
the victim, what <a href="file://localhost/watch">Jeantel said next</a>
was remarkable:</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big><b>West</b>: It was racial, but it was because Trayvon
Martin put race in this…</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Jeantel</b>: No.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>West</b>: You don’t think that’s a racial comment?</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Jeantel</b>: No.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>West</b>: You don’t think that “creepy ass cracker”
is a racial comment?</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>Jeantel</b>: <i>No</i>.</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>You can almost hear the gears of liberal race analysis
struggling and grinding to a standstill, as Jeantel argued <i>both </i>that
the term meant a white person <i>and </i>that it was not racial.
Here was a young woman roundly ridiculed for her lack of intelligence
and articulateness putting forth a concept that was apparently too
complex for the lawyers and the assembled press corps to grasp.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>While John McWhorter rightly <a
href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/28/rachel-jeantel-explained-linguistically/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://ideas.time.com']);">deploys
his linguistic training</a> to defend Jeantel’s mode of answering, he
nevertheless misses the point when he attributes her ambiguity on the
question of race to nervousness or a desire to defend Martin. While I
can’t speak for Jeantel, it instead seems that she was astutely
asserting the fact that so-called “reverse racism” is nothing more than
a myth perpetuated by an aggrieved white America, that without
structural power, there is no such thing as racism. The <i>pursuit </i>was
racist, not the name Trayvon Martin had apparently given it.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Against those who insist on the original class content of
“cracka” either to insist on or deny its pejorative content, Jeantel is
straightforward <a href="file://localhost/watch">in her testimony</a>
to the prosecution: “Did that mean a white individual?” “Yes,
Caucasian.” And against those who would argue that Zimmerman was not
Caucasian, we should recall that people of any race can perpetuate
white supremacy, but that more importantly, Latinos can, of course, be
white. Noteworthy here is Zimmerman’s own self-description on the
medical forms submitted as evidence: “Race: white.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b>“Get Ready to Do the Right Thing” </b></big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>“So in order to break the vicious circle, he explodes.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="right"><big><big>– Fanon</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>George Zimmerman may be convicted, but then again he may
not. It’s not clear which outcome is better, more “just.” Of course he <i>should
</i>be convicted, but any conviction will only become fodder for the
argument, pernicious as it is pervasive, that ours is a “post-racial”
society. After all, this in a week marked not only of the Paula Deen
scandal, but more importantly by New York Mayor <a
href="http://gothamist.com/2013/06/29/bloomberg_thinks_nypd_stops-and-fri.php"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://gothamist.com']);">Michael
Bloomberg’s recent suggestion</a> that his police stop-and-frisk “too
many whites” (evidently 14% is too high). If justice for Trayvon Martin
blinds us to the thousands of other Trayvon Martins that have died (one
black person <a
href="http://mxgm.org/report-on-the-extrajudicial-killings-of-120-black-people/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://mxgm.org']);">killed
by police every 36 hour</a>s, according to one important report), then
we should not be so quick to embrace it as a victory.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In and article published shortly after Zimmerman’s arrest,
McWhorter called for the Zimmerman trial to be televised as a sort of
healing catharsis for the nation, a “re-do.” But he didn’t mean this as
a “re-do” for Simi Valley, but instead for O.J. Simpson. It is white
America, not black America, that needs an apology, as <a
href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/put-differently/102718/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-arrest"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.newrepublic.com']);">McWhorter
wrote that</a>:</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>The Trayvon Martin case [!] could be a kind of redo.
Assuming there is some sort of conviction, a televised Zimmerman trial
would be a demonstration that—contrary to what has often been said in
the wake of the Rodney King verdict, and has been said too often over
the past few weeks in reference to Martin—black people can get justice
in this country. Finally, there will be a conversation on race that can
have a properly cathartic ending.</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Nothing could be more perverse than putting the words
“properly” and “cathartic” together in this way. Nothing could be more
perverse than using Trayvon Martin’s death to prove a lie: that the
United States is “post-racial,” that black Americans can expect justice
in the courts rather than in the streets. Regardless, McWhorter’s
hoped-for catharsis seems off the table, as white supremacy rears its
ugly head in every aspect of the testimony, the cross-examination, and
the press coverage. Rather than concealing race, the defense is
pointing directly at it, albeit in a veiled way, hoping that the mostly
white but at least non-black jury will stick to the script.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>For Fanon, there comes a point at which the innately
guilty reject this “inborn complex” and turn it back on their enemies:</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<blockquote>
<p><big><big>the colonized subject is always presumed guilty [but]
does not accept his guilt, but rather considers it a kind of curse, a
sword of Damocles. But deep down the colonized subject acknowledges no
authority. He is dominated but not domesticated… The muscles of the
colonized are always tensed… always ready to change his role as game
for that of hunter… “Get ready to do the right thing.”</big></big></p>
</blockquote>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>But to do so means refusing the comforting incantations of
innocence and standing with the thousands already judged “guilty,”
executed or imprisoned for little more than being black: Ramarley
Graham, Alan Blueford, Marissa Alexander, Sean Bell, CeCe McDonald,
Gary King, Kimani Gray… and Trayvon Martin…</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><b><i><em><strong>George Ciccariello-Maher</strong></em></i><strong> </strong></b>teaches
political theory at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the author
of <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0822354527/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);">We
Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution</a> (Duke
University Press, May 2013), and can be reached at gjcm(at)drexel.edu.</big></big></p>
</div>
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