Youth are demonized and criminalized, especially black youth.

Essay by maderaUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, November 2014

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Media images of youth assignment.

Youth are demonized and criminalized, especially black youth.

Black youth of today are demonized and criminalized. The demonization of youth is the portrayal of them as inhuman or dangerously superhuman and it creates a moral justification for the perpetuation of brutal and dehumanizing state policies. Images of young black youth, black men to be precise, who appear to display acts of violence for no apparent reason have been normalized and framed as delinquent in today's media. Attention is drawn away from the actual difficulties they face and or the abuses they suffer and their cultural activity is seen as an example of their status as dangerous people. The three media sources I chose are the YouTube videos showing songs about Trayvon Martins, online blogs and lastly magazines.

The YouTube video about Trayvon Martins shows how the elders of his community and the media in general came together to try and alert and fight for Trayvon's rights .The

song is about how he went to the grocery at night and was suspected by Zimmerman to be involved in suspicious criminal activity when he was coming out of the store .The song goes on to tell how Zimmerman called the police and reported that a black man was walking suspiciously in his neighbourhood. It also tells how the police told him to stay calm, not to pursue the boy and that police officials had been dispatched. Zimmerman took matters into his hands which resulted in the shooting and killing of Trayvon before the police arrived on the scene. This song is a narrative of the demonization of a black youth by an elder during a neighbourhood watch. Despite not knowing who Trayvon was and despite the fact that Trayvon had not attacked anyone, Zimmerman felt that...