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How the street failed Trayvon Martin
Numerous observers have noted that Trayvon Martin was killed on the streets of a gated community for the crime of 'walking while black.' His murder was aided and abetted by a failed urban design model tragically lacking in 'eyes on the street.'
Wed, Mar 28 2012 at 9:33 AM
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Photo: Dean Terry/Flickr
In a recent post, I posed a question I thought was somewhat rhetorical: “Is walking a form of activism?” Might a simple stroll down the street, I mused, constitute an act of dissent in a transportation network and broader urban landscape built mainly for cars? Within hours of posting it, I started seeing news stories seemingly everywhere, revealing with mounting vividness the shocking, sickening details of Trayvon Martin’s murder while strolling the streets of the gated community in Florida where his father's fiance lived.
Once you get past the ridiculous line of reasoning, advocated most prominently by epically misguided pseudo-journalist Geraldo Rivera, that Martin’s hooded sweatshirt in and of itself constituted grounds for suspicion, the main reason Martin first drew the attention that led to his murder was the simple fact that he was a pedestrian in a neighborhood where that is a strange enough act to attract the interest of the local vigilante.
Since the full details of Martin’s murder broke, commentators in numerous venues have attached the same phrase to the boy’s transgression: “walking while black.” Here’s how Marian Wright Edelman described the phenomenon:
Every parent raising black sons knows the dilemma: deciding how soon to have the talk. Choosing the words to explain to your beautiful child that there are some people who will never like or trust him just because of who he is — including some who should be there to protect him, but will instead have the power to hurt him. Training him how to walk, what to say, and how to act so he won’t seem like a threat. Teaching him that the burden of deflating stereotypes and reassuring other people’s ignorance will always fall on him, and while that isn’t fair, in some cases it may be the only way to keep him safe and alive.
Obviously, the emphasis is (and should be) on the racial implications of the phrase, but I think it’s also worth exploring the pedestrian aspect of it. Martin appeared suspicious and threatening to George Zimmerman because he was black, but he attracted that suspicion because he was walking.
For half a century now, urban planners and critics of a certain persuasion — the Jane Jacobs school, more or less — have been arguing that America’s predominant suburban design model, where the car is king and communities are cleaved into separate pods for living, shopping, working and playing, is a drain on social capital and robs neighborhoods of the rich interplay of random, multivalent activities that breeds — and protects — healthy community. In shorthand, this is often referred to by one of Jacobs’ most famous phrases: “eyes on the street.”
Here is Jacobs explaining the phrase in "The Death and Life of American Cities," her groundbreaking urban philosophy text:
A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities:First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space. Public and private spaces cannot ooze into each other as they do typically in suburban settings or in projects.
Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.
And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers. Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. Almost nobody does such a thing. Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.
I can’t think of a case where a street has failed on all counts as fully as the streets of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Fla., failed Trayvon Martin.
Like any gated community, the Retreat fails to clearly demarcate public and private space by declaring the entire community to be private space. Martin believed he was walking innocently down a public street like any other; Zimmerman evidently understood him to be trespassing on private property. In the Retreat, there were no “natural proprietors” or “effective eyes on the street” at all — no shopkeepers, no old timers on the corner or mothers out on the stoop, not even much in the way of passersby.
Zimmerman had stepped into this void — or driven around in it, actually — to proclaim himself the one and only natural proprietor, the only effective set of eyes, the neighborhood cop, plus judge, jury and executioner all in one. In a landscape completely denuded of its natural social life, the pedestrian was an intruder by default and the armed, motorized vigilante was in complete control.
There are any number of sad dimensions to the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, and one of them was the way that the street failed him. Completely. Let’s hope the Retreat at Twin Lakes represents the end of the war on public spaces that belong to us all.
To discuss the value of public space 140 characters at a time, follow me on Twitter: @theturner.
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I am a firm believer that if you mind your own business you won't have time to worry about others and that's what Zimmerman should have done. But the most important question is and I am sure no one would like to answer it honestly, but What If It Had Been Your Child?
Enter your commentsWhat about the Police who back up zimmerman's contention that he was beaten by the boy? Zimmerman's back had grass stains, his nose was bleeding and the back of his head was bleeding. This corresponds to the contention that the boy tried to beat Zimmerman up first, punching him in the nose and slamming his head on the pavement., Then he ran and was fired upon. Get real folks. The boy had culpability.
1. Zimmerman exceeded his mandate as Neighborhood WATCH.
2. Zimmerman had no training for ANY sort of confrontation as would be required of a licensed armed security officer in the State of Florida.
3. Zimmerman, the self-proclaimed captain of this Neighborhood WATCH, became a hostile threat the moment he refused 911's advice to not follow the kid.
4. If you are followed by a shaved-head thug 100 Lbs bigger than you demanding to know what you are doing, what would you do?
Trayvon was hardly a helpless kid. The Press simply used an old photo. He was 6 foot 3 and old enough to join the army. Three witnesses said he physically attacked Zimmerman. There had been 8 robberies in the neighborhood previously which is why they created the neighborhood watch. All Martin had to do was say what he was doing instead of punching Zimmerman.
again backwards reasoning!
did this 18 yr. old "man" committ any of the crimes in the neighborhood?-- do anything suspicious?
A neighborhood WATCH if fine -- Zimmerman however crossed the line --- how do you know what was said between the parties involved?
Even police are supposed to have "probable cause" before harrassing citizens!
So back to the big question-- WHY did Zimmerman start this in the first place??
IF IT WERE A WHITE THE UPROAR WOULD MUCH LESS, BUT AN OUT OF CONTROL BLACK BOY IS ANOTHER STORY
"His only mistake was following and confronting"....??!
That's the whole point!! By doing this, he caused a young man's death. That's at least a manslaughter charge.
You obviously do not understand the law. It may be manslaughter, it may be nothing. No way is "as least a manslaughter charge" based on the information that has been released. It's not a crime to observe & confront someone in your neighborhood. If he did not threaten or physically touch Martin as he claims then Zimmerman is in the right.
Zimmerman did not confront Martin. Martin confronted Zimmerman and then viciously attacked him. When Zimmerman's holstered gun was exposed to view in the struggle Martin tried to seize it and was shot in the struggle for the gun.
Zimmerman was interrogated by the police for hours on that night with no attorney present and Zimmerman's account matched all the known facts including ones that Zimmerman would not be aware of. He was not charged because there was no credible case against him.
First of all, this boy was being followed. Maybe he was acting tough so as to not let this guy think he was scared. After all, the boy had no idea what this man was up to. He might've even cursed him out or told him that he had a gun. Doesn't matter. That man had no right to take the law into his own hands. I think Zimmerman is guilty.
Is there a statute against following too?
stalking is against the law
There is no stalking category I'm acquainted with that would consider less than a minute in time to be categorized as STALKING.
Hey Pappy, the kid wasn'r walking about in the wee hours of the morning....it was around 7pm.
this is just tragik
Has anyone asked why the under age male was walking around in the wee hours of the morning? This could have been prevented if someone decided to do some everyday parenting. Zimmerman is innocent until proven guilty. In today's society, not yester year's, but today if the authorities thought for a second that Zimmerman was running a foul, they would have arrested him already.
Since when is walking to the store illegal? Since when does Neighborhood WATCH confront ANYONE?
I'm sorry but you are so wrong. Actually some of the cops wanted to arrest him, but others overruled them, I suspect becuase the boy was black. The boy walked to the store like I did many times as a child and for that one bit, walking where no one else walks, but everyone drives, he was targeted. Now if he was white, once targeted, he porbbaly would have been left alone, but as a black teen, he "needed" to be questioned.
That's just wrong. And the author of the article is right on target.
Actually, the cops wanted him charged and it was the DISTRICT ATTORNEY who decided against charges.
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