Rhetoric Race and Religion
Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, Oscar J. Grant III, James Byrd Jr., Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, Denise McNair: their names represent a legacy of gunned down, beaten, broken, burnt, asphyxiated, castrated, torn apart, and lynched black bodies. The justification for their murders, and the hubris among the perpetrators that their crimes would go unpunished, were intended to show the world the powerlessness of a people. Instead, the callousness of the perpetrators exposed a culture of violence embedded deep within the spirit of America. It is a violence that not only preys upon black bodies, but on all those that dare to believe that they are worth more than the limitations of their status within the caste system that is America.
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