Wednesday, March 12, 2014

George Zimmerman Autographs are the New Lynching Photography


George Zimmerman signed autographs at the New Orlando Gun Show last weekend.

His claim to fame? Killing Trayvon Martin.

A question. What type of person would want George Zimmerman memorabilia? What type of person would want to endorse his stalking and murdering of an unarmed teenager whose "crime" was walking home and not being sufficiently submissive to a racist, gun toting, street vigilante?

Autographs are sought from celebrities. The man or woman on the corner; the local drunk; the town loser; or the anonymous median percentile average person is not a real "star". Nor does their signature or photo have any cache or quasi magical power as a type of totem or fetish which can be channeled by its owner.

Zimmerman's autograph is a way for his fans and public to idolize him.

Zimmerman's signed photo is also a way for his supporters to be closer to him, and to "own" part of his "success" and "power".

The autograph of George Zimmerman, a man who is "famous" only because he stalked, hunted, and killed an unarmed black teenager, is for those who seek it, a validation of their right to kill and murder at will those people that they deem to be the Other and somehow "less than". The South's hyper-masculine and racialized norms of honor both legitimate and sustain such logic.  

If one cannot be the hero who slays the dragon, at least he or she can touch the blood soaked sword or keep company with their idealized selves.

Consequently, for a particularly racist and pitiable part of the (white) American public, George Zimmerman is their knight and role-model because he sanitized, cleansed, and protected his community (read: castle) from an outside (black) invader.

Trayvon Martin's literal body--black and male--was deemed suspect and a threat by virtue of its existence in the white space policed by George Zimmerman, what was a racist police action legitimated by infamous "Stand Your Ground" laws.

The black body under Jim and Jane Crow was judged a threat in the same way. Sundown Towns and other types of de facto and de jure laws and customs served White Supremacy by controlling the movement, labor, and bodies of African-Americans across the United States. When African-Americans violated those norms of White authority and power they were subjected to lynchings and other types of extra-judicial punishment.

The spectacular lynching was a ritual that was designed to purge the white body politic of what it saw as the toxic, invasive, citizenship and presence of African-Americans. 

It is important to note how black Americans during Jim and Jane Crow were not killed in an efficient way such as by a bullet to the head or a knife to the throat: instead, they were tortured, dismembered, burned alive, and reduced to trinkets and prizes for the white crowds in attendance.

The recent TV show True Detective featured the satanic and ritualistic murders of girls and women. True Detective's violence was not new; it is a pale echo of the spectacular violence which was visited upon African-Americans for almost 100 years.

Lynching was a ceremony that reinforced the group position of whites over people of color. Because they were acts of group terrorism, lynchings also helped to create a cohesive and intact white community across widely divergent lines of class and property. 

Ultimately, lynching was a type of magic that used racial violence to give power to white people by ceremonially taking it away from African-Americans.

The lynching of thousands of African-Americans spawned a type of national popular culture. During the 19th to 20th centuries, lynching photographs and postcards were a way for white people across the United States to enjoy the power that came with their supposed total control over and intimidation of the African-American community.

In many ways, lynching photography was one of the country's first types of mass popular culture.

The vast majority of white Americans would never attend or participate in a spectacular lynching. But, they could buy a postcard or photo of such barbaric events as a way to reinforce their full allegiance to Whiteness, and membership in what was then a still expanding and evolving notion of the "white race".

The people who buy George Zimmerman's autographs and photos are contemporary heirs to a long tradition of White Supremacist violence against people of color in the United States. It is true that Trayvon Martin was not hung from a tree, forced to eat his own genitals in order to stop the torture, or burned alive before being physically dissected for souvenirs.

However, the idea of Trayvon Martin's murder, and the symbolic power of the black male body being vanquished and killed by someone such as George Zimmerman, holds a special place in the political imagination of the American Right-wing with its gun obsessions, neo Confederate politics, "black crime" fantasies of the "knockout game", Birtherism, and twin myths of "reverse racism" and "white oppression".

The defenders of George Zimmerman--and especially those who buy Zimmerman's "art" or autographs--are worshiping their hero and his "great" feat of vanquishing a "threatening" and "uppity" black person.



In the 19th and 20th centuries such racially resentful and bigoted white people would trade and traffic in lynching photography and postcards. In the age of social and digital media this same type of person, and those who identify with them, use the Internet and cable news to circulate their idealization and hero worship of men like George Zimmerman.

40 comments:

Nicole T. said...

I have seen people make justifications for the murder of Trayvon by claiming the media has lied about his character. If that is now the way in which we judge whether an individual has the right to live, then I would have been shot at twelve years old for being what those people call a "thug". If a twelve year old white female does some shady things she is considered misguided and at worst sent to away to correct her negative behaviors via a juvenile detention center. In Trayvon's case it is not even what he has done, but a questionable character that some have purported without any semblance of supportive history. He is a child that unnecessarily died due to an adult with a penchant for violence and vigilantism. That is all. There should be no question as to whom is the victim here. It is clear as day. Allowing this notion is what brought permission to openly celebrate Zimmerman's violent vigilantism. This essay is the best analogy for the desire to align oneself with Zimmerman.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

Sundown Towns is a great catalog of the many different ways in which white America excluded black Americans from the normative culture throughout the 1900's. I learned a lot from James Loewen and was able to meet him once when he was doing a tour for his book Lies Across the Nation about historical markers that are dishonest like this one for the Colfax Massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Colfax_Riot_sign_IMG_2401.JPG


Civilization is a lie, a myth that people cooked up for themselves to feel better about their group experience. Has human intelligence and knowledge descended into a Dark Age with the assistance of racism?

DanF said...

Astute observation - there is indeed a direct line between lynching post cards and the Zimmerman autographs. Absolutely repulsive. If they were selling a chance to kick him in the balls, I could understand it. But an autograph? wtf ...


Given the insanity our history, the utter lack of racially motivated black-on-white violence is actually a testament to the overwhelmingly non-violent nature of the black community. Since he's in your blogroll, you're probably aware that Tim Wise did yeoman's work on dismantling the crime statistics klan-friendly asswipes like to use a few months back: http://www.timwise.org/2013/08/race-crime-and-statistical-malpractice-how-the-right-manipulates-white-fear-with-bogus-data/


Not that your average racist has any interest in trying to understand the statistical arguments, and even less desire to accept their meaning, but it's a good tool to have in the bag.

George Smith said...

I was curious to see if someone had quickly mustered up the nerve to peddle one of his autographs. While stupefying, this result, older, was not that unexpected.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/REAL-George-Zimmerman-Autograph-Signature-on-legal-doc-fingerprint-seal-RARE-/261418436898?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cddc0c922
There is a small sampling of memorabilia, the peddling of newspapers with headlines. Still, overwhelming social stigma appears to be keeping the profit margin low to non-existent.

chauncey devega said...

Part of his popularity is also a function of how Zimmerman is a symbol to stick to any person who defends the equal rights of black and brown people. Guns, symbolic racism, and white racial resentment all wrapped up in one bundle. Again too, no one flips the character issue to Zimmerman and question if Trayvon should have shot him on sight. White supremacy isn't just about skinheads and kkk members. We live in a society that is white supremacist but in which overt white racists are shunned. Racism is a grand and evolving tradition.

chauncey devega said...

What was Dr. Loewen like?

chauncey devega said...

You lie. The blacks are the greatest menace to white people the world has ever seen! Stop lying!

chauncey devega said...

He has a few big backers. If Zimmerman were not so clumsy he would be doing even better.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

He was friendly and sincere, very smart. His presentation was a basic lecture about these monuments that have had a neo-Confederate spin placed on them. I was young, maybe 21 at the time and had only read Lies My Teacher Told Me and then my wife (girlfriend at the time) bought me Sundown Towns which I read years later when my knowledge expanded.

OldPolarBear said...

That may be another factor pointing to his being a sociopath. From what I've read, they are typically not that well organized. That is to say, they don't do that well financially, etc. in the long term.

Justin M. White said...

I would have thought, being a white male raised in the South (and central Florida at that), that despite my current perspective and years of corrective education, I would at least have the basic requisite assumptions or biases ingrained in my psyche to understand why other white men in the South would idolize Zimmerman. However, I'm a complete loss. Perhaps I'm too young? Though I doubt that as well, since soon after the initial killing of Martin, even my grandfather (a man very invested in his whiteness) said to me he didn't understand how a man could shoot down a minor and not at least be detained by the police. Though I've never heard him condemn Zimmerman, or the verdict of the trial, I know he did follow the trail closely as it aired on the news.



This entire phenomenon baffles me. I mean, I understand it intellectually, as you've written it above, but there's no part of me that can understand how someone could convince themselves he's a modern day folk hero.



Looks like I still have a lot to learn.

Justin M. White said...

The "Dade Massacre" (which was actually just a humiliating defeat for US troops under command of Maj. Francis Dade by a Seminole force while they were acting out President Jackson's Indian removal policies in Florida) is the basis for the name of Miami-Dade County, which is home to Miami, as well as Dade City, the county chair for Pasco county (and my hometown). Fortunately it seems like the term "massacre" has been dropped in most cases, especially for the historical site, now called the "Dade Battlefield", but I suspect this is very recent. My friend sent me a snippet from a 1970s book on Dade City history with a defense of Major Francis Dade as a symbol of vigilance against evil.

I uploaded the photo of the text he sent me here: http://complaintificate.tumblr.com/post/67896979121/taken-from-a-book-on-dade-city-history-found-by

A bit off topic but your comment reminded me of all this.

The Sanity Inspector said...

In the event of a civil suit judgment against Zimmerman, maybe the Martins could attach the proceeds of these autographs. Like Albert Goldman did with O. J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

Interesting, Dade Massacre, thank you.

see also: Battle of Sand Creek, a massacre of mostly women and children and older men of Cheyenne.


Battle of Wounded Knee, massacre of unarmed men, women and children of Lakota.


Fetterman Massacre, an ambush where Lakota warriors led a small cavalry band out of a fort and ambushed them, killing them all, technically it should have been called a battle.


All of these have been given the appropriate names today, but the legacy of the original names is an important lesson for the time period and the memory created.


The Colfax Massacre took place in Louisiana at the Colfax Courthouse. That wiki photo I shared memorializes it as the Colfax Riot. Black Republicans were holding the courthouse for the legitimately elected Republican politician. White paramilitary groups encircled the courthouse and a battle raged for a day or longer. Eventually the black Louisianians held up a white flag and surrendered their guns. The building was then lit on fire while the rest of the men were murdered.. It was a massacre, perhaps a riot, but a riot originating from white Louisianians.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

So there was a news story about a black man who's been arrested for first degree murder charge, we don't get a lot of murders. An organization that reports on various emergency issues in the area posted the article about it as they had originally posted about the incident when it happened back in January.


Most of the comments are like, scum, kill him, rot in hell, typical things you could expect about a murderer. Someone, a white woman, says "He needs to be strung up in the public square, charge admission, I'll pay." I mean, this is some lynching psychology right there. Her profile picture has her with a baby and on the bottom says, "I'm the NRA and I vote"

chauncey devega said...

We are a country sick with racism. Some folks are working on healing. Others want to remain sick. Consider this: there are people who participated in lynchings still alive today. That excludes how the State is also an element in the extrajudicial punishment and murder of people of color and poor folks.

chauncey devega said...

Priceless huh?--guns, racism, white rage, and allusions to lynchings.

chauncey devega said...

Didn't know. Florida was also invaded by Jackson to deal w. runaway maroons and their First Nations allies. A massacre of black civil war soldiers took place in Florida too. Nevermind Florida having the highest per capita lynchings of blacks.

chauncey devega said...

The juice is loose, no? I guess not. That crocodile teared father was a piece of work. Separate conversation. Now you have inspired me to look for my old t-shirt that celebrated OJ's acquittal.

Christy2012 said...

Zimmerman strikes me as a total loser and most of the people buying this crap probably are too. However, it is also true that there is a cottage industry for autographs, notes, and the like from any kind of celebrity, even convicted serial killers, so I am not convinced is likely to be connected to racism or "lynching photography" (not to mention other non-racist reasons why one might cling to this, e.g., gun rights zealots). Moreover, given the small and mostly random nature of these sorts of incidents versus blatant premeditated lynchings, not to mention the very graphic nature of these depictions, the situations do not strike me as at all comparable.


It seems to me that when we have some 300M people in this country, many of which are surely stupid, ignorant, crazy, or some combination thereof, you can find evidence of people saying or doing things to support almost any position you so please, especially when you are willing to selectively impute motives without much in the way of concrete evidence.

chauncey devega said...

I will leave it others with more patience to dismantle your logic and understanding of history in the present.

Christy2012 said...

I am not denying said history. I am not suggesting that racism does not exist today either, even in its more blatant form (e.g., actual skinheads, KKK, etc). What I question is that this must necessarily be substantially connected with "lynching photography" or even that the existance of a handful of hateful racist nut-jobs is particularly relevant to anything today.

chauncey devega said...

White privilege racism denying 101 comment--"the existance of a handful of hateful racist nut-jobs is particularly relevant to anything today".

Myshkin the Idiot said...

re: "collectible serial killer paraphernalia"
One should wonder what the motive is behind those that would collect those sorts of items. Zimmerman does have a bastion of fandom, those who feel a connection to him having been on the right side of the confrontation with Trayvon Martin, an unarmed minor. I came across this very comic today, very supportive of the narrative offered by Zimmerman, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trayvon-Martin-vs-George-Zimmerman-fight-to-the-death-comic-poster-rare-Poppy-/251471653340?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a8ce0e9dc

re: "small and mostly random nature of these incidents" technically lynchings were not all that prevalent, perhaps a few in any given place in a year. They were not always premeditated, but the idea is the public display of "justice" being meted out. There are also a lot of good studies about the psychology of racist individuals and their inability to empathize with people of different racial backgrounds. Chauncey has posted about it and others have given links here about it.

Are lynchings of the past comparable to violence like Zimmerman, Dunn, Rodney Black, or Theodore Wafer? Perhaps the scene is not quite as comparable, though there have been lynchings even recently, not as public.. http://www.gaffneyledger.com/news/2006-01-11/front_page/001.html

Chauncey's assertion here is the memorabilia attached to it, the value of George Zimmerman's autograph is equal to the value of a lynching photograph. The lynching photograph shows a community standing up together to make society a better place (for white people). Trayvon Martin was not a perfect person. Many people are convinced, people I have spoken with, that Trayvon Martin was high that night, that he was already a criminal, being high made him agitated and violent, and he saw an opportunity to attack someone randomly and was going to do it, to kill him. Read that comic I showed above, it's a white fantasy piece.

kokanee said...

Wow! European-Americans were not good to Native Americans. In addition to genocide, there was slavery too:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

DanF said...

Oh crap! Did I blow your cover? I'm sorry man...

I Might Be... said...

A handful? You gotta be out yo' rabid-ass mind? I do believe 90% of white people are racist with 10% trying to fight the urge of racism like Blade and his vampire DNA.

Christy2012 said...

I said racist nutjobs, as-in actual skinheads, KKK, and other such hate groups. They are a tiny fraction of the population and not that significant in absolute terms either. That you believe 90% of white people are that sort of 'racist' speaks volumes though.

Christy2012 said...

Cult of victimhood 101: assume your conclusion and do not engage with the evidence on the grounds that your opponents' motives are suspect and that this is self-evident truth.

Christy2012 said...

That is not my point. I am not suggesting that racism is always blatant and hateful like that. However, 90% strikes me as a mighty high proportion unless s/he is talking about some really subtle forms of racism. To argue that no one "sees" race or that it never effects them in some way is a mighty high standard to argue against. If that is the standard then the same charge can be leveled against large fractions of every other group in this country and probably even the world. In my opinion such assertions ought to be specific, connected to actual action, and backed up by real evidence if they are to be taken seriously.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

Personally, I think it is very important to understand the most subtle forms of racial prejudice. White people are more likely to be business owners, teachers, politicians, and many other public positions of power and it is important to understand how bias may influence the decisions and actions we take with people of different backgrounds. Prejudices abound for young men and women of color, particularly black men and women, for white people it is not important to address these prejudices as there are not many for white people (maybe racism is the only prejudice or stereotype that can be used for white people) it is not important for white people to address them because they are not the recipient of such racial microaggressions.


What is action but an employer ignoring an application because the name suggested the applicant is black and they don't want to deal with this particular person as studies have demonstrated to be true?

Nicole T. said...

Sorry to get off topic here. But I took college level Native American history recently and was a bit surprised to learn just how settled and populated America was with Native Americans before "settlers" arrived. They had whole communities, town centers, etc. The history books would have us believe they were sparse and nomadic, but this was only to justify their removal from their own communities in order for land to be sold.

smiley said...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nt5uMzjO274/UyBK2n7ZZLI/AAAAAAAA39o/e8colyM4acY/s1600/Smiley+-+Toothless+Old+White+Man.jpe

While I am otherwise a poor, economically marginalized White man who has lost the charm that I had in the past to attract the ladies - when I see that I as a WHITE MAN has the POWER to do something that OFFENDS BLACK PEOPLE and appear in the headline on We Are Respectable Negroes - I GET EMPOWERED.

When I walk past a Black person in real life and I sense that they are turning their nose up at me when they see my sign begging for money - I say to myself:

"I, unlike YOU, can spit upon you and appear on The Root, The Grio, WARN, Politic365, News One Now, Angry Black Lady and AfroSpear - as PROOF that WHITE SUPREMACY still reigns in America"

I Might Be... said...

¿Que? What do you do with this empowerment? Does it cash out, quell hunger, grant wishes or is it just a pygmy of a high like that from crack or coke lines?

smiley said...

It's no pygmy of a high, no siree no!!! It's a killer of a high. See, I use my otherwise wholly marginal antics to divert the attentions of the Black Community away from their many and sundry self-inflicted problems - and instead focus their emotional and rhetorical attentions on a quixotic anti-Racist or even more quixotic "Social Justice Struggle Motion" against an imaginary white-wing enemy.

You negroes and your deceitful sympathizer/supporters aren't intelligent enough to connect the dots of my toothless hoodwink and bamboozle.

kokanee said...

Hey Nicole --I think you are right on topic. Genocide is certainly one of the most ugliest parts of our history. Guns, germs and steel or maybe just technology (military might) rules the world.

Dubious Brother said...

Yes, I understand you find Zimmerman and his antics distasteful--however, out of the other corner of your mouth you say you refuse to see any resemblance to those who laud Zimmerman and purchase his "memorabilia" to eager bystanders to lynchings, without "evidence".


The gulf between the sides of your mouth can be easily explained. It is due to your willful blindness.


Your over-reliance on the need for empirical evidence of the intent of Zimmerman's "fans" is overriding any bit of common sense (or historical memory) you may have on this subject; the result is that you appear to be an apologist (or a bad explainer, at the least) for Cowboy Zim's supporters.


Guess what: You will not find any empirical evidence that quantifies how much Zimmerman memorabilia is sold, and no surveys of the personal beliefs of the purchasers. Anywhere. Similarly, you'll find no such evidence of lynching bystanders and facilitators opinions (you might argue, "how do we know their intent, they were just standing there"), but there they are, regardless, in black and white photos--suggesting approval.


Rest assured, we know them by their presence, and their smiles.


I suggest that the transaction itself--of taking time to meet Zimmerman, obtaining a signature and a photo--is evidence enough of intent. Regardless of a viable "secondary market" for his crap.


How is that? Good enough for you?


But is it really that difficult for you to understand the analogy between the shooting of Martin and subsequent hero worship of Zimmerman and vigilante justice of the Jim Crow era?


If you are simply unaware of this nation's history, or are a foreigner, you'd get a pass here--but you write as if you have at least a minimal understanding of this.


Your "Cult of Victimhood" comment showed your true colors, above.


It was your tell.

Myshkin the Idiot said...

what happened to smiley's comment? that was hilarious


"I get stuck up blacks looking down their noses at me on the street...

You so much as spit on a black and that's proof that WHITE SUPREMACY is still prevalent"

wtf, this guy want to spit on black people..

Wendy Johnson said...

It's not the blatant kinds of racism that are the problem, in my opinion. Those are easy to get past, but what's harder to get past is the attitudes you were raised with. I speak as a white person, and it's taken me most of my life to realize just how lucky that makes me. It's kind of the equivalent of how rich people think, like how they used to say George Bush was "born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple". That's why I like the term "white privilege," better than the term "racism." There's still a lot of privileged attitudes, lurking inside me, however "color blind" I may have become over the years.

Clark Smith said...

Beautiful bird photos, These would be great printed, framed and displayed together (http://shannonspointofview.com) in the sweet blue cottage!