What if [Trayvon] Martin were armed? What if he was able to defend himself? Had the situation resulted in the death of George Zimmerman rather than that of Martin, it is unlikely that the public would have been as outraged and galvanized into action to the same extent.
[…]When we build politics around standards of legitimate victimhood that require passive sacrifice, we will build a politics that requires a dead black boy to make its point. It’s not surprising that the nation or even the black leadership have failed to rally behind CeCe McDonald, a black trans woman who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter after a group of racist, transphobic white people attacked her and her friends, cutting McDonald’s cheek with a glass bottle and provoking an altercation that led to the death of a white man who had a swastika tattoo. Trans women of color who are involved in confrontations that result in the death of their attackers are criminalized for their survival. When Akira Jackson, a black trans woman, stabbed and killed her boyfriend after he beat her with a baseball bat, she was given a four-year sentence for manslaughter.
[…]Rejecting the politics of innocence is not about assuming a certain theoretical posture or adopting a certain perspective—it is a lived position.
jackie wang, carceral capitalism