- Feb 2019
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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But only white kids were allowed to be innocent. The more that popular writers, playwrights, actors and visual artists created images of innocent white children, the more they depicted children of color, especially black children, as unconstrained imps. Over time, this resulted in them being defined as nonchildren.
the initial label of innocence put on children actually was the catalyst for viewing black children as the opposite. It's included primarily because history of what went wrong in our past is a great motivator for moving forward.
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The association between childhood and innocence did not always exist. Before the Enlightenment, children in the West were widely regarded as immodest beings who needed to be taught to restrain themselves. “The devil has been with them already,” the Puritan minister
This section sets out to talk about the ties between childhood and innocence. Originally, children were actually viewed much closer to devil spawn, and needed to be cleansed and taught innocence, or whatever the equivalent was at the time. However, with Sentimentalists, they worked on the perception of childhood innocence being the only real difference between children and adults. However, this only applied to white children.
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George Zimmerman admitted at his 2012 bail hearing that he misjudged Trayvon Martin’s age when he killed him. “I thought he was a little bit younger than I am,” he said, meaning just under 28. But Trayvon was only 17.
The main idea is that black children are viewed as older, less innocent, and more adultlike by people of all races. It's included because not only does it elaborate on the main information in this piece, it gives hard evidence for the idea that they're viewed as older - one who was killed was perceived as a decade older than he was. This connects primarily because it establishes the problem for which the article sets out to solve.
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