Racist-Imperialist-Patriarchy [R.I.P.] - In Loving Rememory of Trayvon Martin

• In Event: Theoretical Perspectives on Gun Laws, Race, Patriarchy, and Victim-Blaming

Abstract

In this paper I provide a Black Feminist analysis of Sybrina Fulton and Rachael Jeantel’s experiences throughout the course of Zimmerman’s murder trial. I present the concept of Racist-Imperialist-Patriarchy (R.I.P.) as interlocking, interdependent systems of oppression that allowed the media and courtroom to demonize his friend and his mother in order to criminalize Trayvon to legalize his murder. Through these circumstances we see how violence against Black women underpins the modern-day lynchings as they re-occurs with impunity. I present a hauntological analysis of ‘home’ as the site for racialized-gendered violence. I conclude that at the heart of R.I.P. death is a structural cycle of violence that reproduces on large-scales and across time the relationships that abusive men enforce upon their victims. I illustrate how the centuries old relationships between Black and White communities in United States encompasses the classic cycles of tension, beatings, blame the victim, honeymoon and tension leading to more beatings. Zimmerman’s trial brought to an international scale the details of this national, long-standing abusive relationship: the richest house on the block (the United States of America) had yet another moment in which the abused victim could not hide the bruises, scars and bodies resultant from the beatings.

Author

• Viviane Saleh-Hanna, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth