Trayvon in Me: The Hate Crime of Black Masculinity
I went to Bloomington's Consciousness Raising Rally for Trayvon Martin in "celebration" of my successful dissertation proposal oral defense. I have always tried to draw a distinct line between my scholarship and whatever activist voice that I have. The events of Trayvon Martin, however, capture a timeless problem of intersectionality to which even standard progressive politics may be blind. The poem I presented, and its precedent, draw from the thesis that the hate-crime of Trayvon Martin bespeaks the fatalizing stigmas at the nexus of race and gender.