Looking for the White Trayvon Martin

I’m not sure exactly when this was created. 561hiphop.com posted it on May 8th, 2012. The Grio put it up on May 15th. I don’t know if you’ve come across it before but I saw it for the first time yesterday on Atlantic Wire in a post having to do with conservatives being on the hunt now for “the white Trayvon Martin.”

Forget for a minute that the seventeen-year-old Martin was simultaneously memorialized and immortalized in the original diptych, the companion to the famous hoodie photo, at a younger age. (Although the Martin attorney told WAPO Trayvon was actually sixteen in the original Hollister t-shirt shot, Poynter dates it more likely to 13 or 14.) One thing significant about its appearance yesterday is that the reverse-race version has now proven its illustrative value beyond Zimmerman’s trial. You don’t earn that kind of endurance without hitting a significant chord. But what, exactly, does the illustration have to offer the right?

Conceptually, I get that the conservatives are looking for a white correlate to Martin. When you superimpose that intention onto this illustration, however, doesn’t it render the point ridiculous on its face?

(photo-illustration credit via 561hiphop: Max King; diptych 2: AP Photo/Handout-Martin Family; Orange County Jail; unattributed; unattributed.)