Respectability Politics: The Lives of Claudette Colvin and Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown in Relation to Organization and Mobilization within Black Communities

Recently in class we briefly discussed Claudette Colvin, a teenager who did almost the exact same thing as Rosa Parks but did not become the face of the start of the Civil Rights Movement. Claudette was a pregnant, unwed teenager. The NAACP did not build a case around her story because she did not represent the African American community in a positive light by being a pregnant teenager as opposed to Rosa Parks who was a married working activist. Rosa became the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, and later the Civil Rights Movement, because she was someone who held a position in society that is well respected.

I’d like to take this example of the use of respectability to compare how something similar happened in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and many other Black youths who experienced similar tragedies. And finally analyze how mass media may have played a large role in how they movements they initiate. The events involving Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were extremely similar; however, there was not as much of an outcry or a community development after the death of Trayvon Martin, Reshina McBride, or Jordan Davis as there was to the killing of Michael Brown. Right after Brown’s killing the Ferguson community almost immediately rallied around Brown’s death as protest for the increasing problem of unarmed African American youths being killed by law enforcement.

But why was there not as strong of an outcry over the deaths of Reshina McBride, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, or even John Crawford who was killed on the same day as Brown? The media covered all of these tragedies and communities all showed their sympathy and support, but Al Sharpton did not travel to Florida, Ohio, or Illinois to speak to entire communities even though he did give speeches and reactions. The NAACP did not start a petition for justice or civil rights investigation for any of these other cases, nor did they dedicate and entire page of their website to updates about the these cases as they have done here: http://www.naacp.org/pages/justice-for-michael-brown.

The fundamental difference between these cases is the state they were in when they were either confronted or killed and how the news media portrayed the event initially and in the later days. The news constantly talked about Trayvon Martin being a problem child for his mother and how Arizona Iced Tea and Skittles were used to achieve a small high. Reshina McBride was intoxicated the time she crashed her car, and the media stated that the shooter mistook her for a robber. John Crawford was and unwed father, although the media did not largely focus on this fact, it is very similar to Claudette Colvin’s own circumstances.

            When Micheal Brown was killed, the media and the community quickly rallied around the fact that Brown was supposed to start college within the next few days. Stories of his and his mother’s efforts to graduate high school and stories of his character circulated within his community, social media, and news media. Al Sharpton and the NAACP immediately showed their support for the Brown family and the Brown case in itself. A few days after the shooting, the Ferguson Police Department stated that Brown was a suspect in a strong-armed robber, normally this would end similarly to Reshina McBride’s case and Brown would have lost support, but the community still stood by him and his character as shown by the continuance of the protests.

            While Michael Brown may have not been an activist like Rosa Parks, he had a better reputation at the time of his death than those who died in similar situations. It seems that the media’s portrayal of the victim largely affected how much movement was involved around it. While Brown’s respectability is not the soul reason his death ignited a movement, it is interesting in comparison to previous tragedies and those that happened in a similar time frame of Brown’s death.