Trayvon Martin case: How 5 young black men see race and justice in US

The Monitor approached, at random, five young black men in Boston, Los Angeles, Coral Gables, Fla., and Louisville, Ky., and asked them to talk about the Trayvon Martin case, race relations, hoodies, and, of course, their own life experiences. Here's what they had to say.

Will Jones, 24, Wal-Mart employee and graphic designer, Louisville, Ky.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor
‘My rule is to never throw the first punch and always try to talk my way out of situations.’ – Will Jones

As he strides through Louisville's Smoketown neighborhood, Will Jones fits the profile that seems to arouse suspicion among some Americans: skinny, young, black, male, earphones, hoodie.

It's a perception that Mr. Jones is aware of, though he considers himself "pretty much the nicest guy you'll ever meet."

The hoodie, he says, is his most comfortable article of clothing, and it advertises Jones's interest in anime cartoons – but he also believes it played a role in the three occasions when "white cops" stopped him for no apparent reason, asking what he was up to.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jones has not heard of the Trayvon Martin case. Told the basic outlines, he says George Zimmerman never should have gotten out of his SUV. But he also wonders what Trayvon's attitude was during the confrontation.

"I think a lot of it has to do with how people perceive themselves," says Jones. "My rule," he adds, "is to never throw the first punch and always try to talk my way out of situations."

Growing up, Jones lived in places ranging from Jackson, Miss., to Columbus, Ohio. During his family's stints in Jackson and Atlanta, he says, his mother worried a lot about social attitudes toward young black men and whether his attire could get him into trouble. In grade school in Jackson, a white classmate once warned him off an interest he had in a white girl.

On the other hand, when Jones moved to Ohio and became the only black kid in his class, he dreaded prejudice that never materialized.

These days, he feels "kind of in the middle": shunned by some blacks as a "sellout" for his proper diction, and seen by some whites as "just weird" for the way he dresses. "You get it from all sides," he says. "Sometimes it's pretty lonely not to have either of those worlds to completely inhabit."

– Patrik Jonsson, staff writer 

4 of 6

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.