Trayvon Martin

Although I rationally/logically understand how death "trumps" other parts of one's identity, considering we will all die and everyone has experienced death/loss in some degree--I take issue with it.  What death can represent/mean to people is incredibly subjective.  

In class, Trayvon Martin's death loomed in the back of my mind--although his death/trial sparked much needed conversations about America's racial climate, his death did not mean the same thing to everyone.  Although it illuminated prejudice, racial inequalities within our legal systems, gun laws, etc.--the grief and mourning experienced by many black Americans was incredibly racialized.  

I am not sure how many white parents had to sit down their children, explain his death--teach their children how to act when being profiled.  That constant feeling of being watching, questioned, body not being valued, being stereotyped--that is what his death meant to me.  Trayvon Martin is my future child, my father, my boyfriend, my brothers, and me.  He symbolized that black bodies are not valued by American society--that we don't count.  Although his death did create some type of political coalition, it was relatively brief and heavily racialized--certainly not a place for common ground.  

I am still hesistant to Butler's argument in her essay.  Although I understand her argument/find it intriguing, as a person of color I fear that "death" as a source of common ground and site for building political coalitions troublesome, especially within the framework of feminism.  How will death operate within an intersectional framework?  Maybe death can be where the "personal meets the political"?