police-brutality-and-racism-blog

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Regarding: Slavery

Most of us can agree that racism originates directly from European imperialism and the concept of Social Darwinism. It still occurs to this day because of oppressors fear of losing that power that they held over marginalized groups in the ages of colonization. In the United States of America, slavery existed for nearly two and a half centuries; 1619-1865. Slavery was so popular in America, especially in the south where it dominated, that one third of the population were African American slaves. There existed, at that time and still some places today, the ideology that even the poorest whites have a higher social status than any Person of Colour. To stop themselves from questioning the ethicality of their actions, white people used their faith of Christianity and viewed slavery as a ”necessary evil”. In their minds, self preservation and justice could not occur simultaneously, it was either one or the other, and self preservation outweighed the latter for two hundred and forty six years. In order for slavery to work for so long, it required brutality, intimidation, and dehumanization; to white people, black people were not human, they were cattle on two legs. Slaves tried their hardest to resist against their oppressors unrelenting cruelty by having families to create a sense of humanity, but that wasn't enough. This is a major factor for the racism that we see in our society today.

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Me any time I see Europeans commenting sanctimoniously about racism in America

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Regarding: Reconstruction

After the American Civil War and the abolishment of slavery in 1865, there was wish to integrate the rebellion and slaves into society. The goal of reconstruction was to give political freedom and equal rights to African Americans in America. This goal went largely unrealized due to the political stance of the president at the time, Andrew Johnson. The democratic government, who held power at the time, was composed entirely of white people and held an extremely pro-slavery perspective. Although slavery was no longer allowed, the living conditions of black people hadn’t changed on a cosmic degree. The system was very similar to that before the war and they continued to be tied to and worked on land owned by whites, working as sharecroppers: the landowners provided seeds, tools and housing and the share croppers received a share of their crop. Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment ensured citizenship, equal protection and the bill of rights for African Americans in all states. This induced, once again, the fear of loss of power and authority that white people hold, and created the thought process that equal rights for People of Colour is equivalent to white oppression. Since most African Americans were republican, republicans decided they could get more votes if black men allowed to vote. This caused the republican government to dominate thus creating a more diverse government. Predictably, this caused an uproar. White supremacists were livid and attempted to return to the ways of the past through violence. People of Colour were being threatened and killed and being to scared to vote, the democratic party dominated one again. Eventually, people lost interest in reconstruction and the states went back to restricting the rights and freedom of African Americans, taking away their right to vote and setting up Jim Crow Laws to enforce segregation between whites and blacks. This segregation continues to show itself and is a major influence for the violence we see against People of Colour today.

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1 hour in-class assignment, “Commentary on a Current Event”

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Regarding: The Concept of Reverse Racism

Once again the “white people and their overly inflated ego” issue has arised (are you seeing the pattern?). In our society, when something isn’t all about white people, it is immediately coined as “anti white”. When activists say that people who don’t experience racism should be mindful and conscientious when speaking of the subject, racists say we are “shutting down white voices”. In fact, 52% of white Americans are convinced that the “discrimination” that they experience is comparable to that of which People of Colour face. This overwhelmingly large number of people who believe in reverse racism most likely roots from ignorance and the lack of understanding of what racism truly is. Racism is prejudice with power, based on historical systematic oppression and no one person can be held responsible for it. Basically, it’s a past of slavery and colonialism, versus hurt feelings. White people have never been oppressed due to their complexion, so it is undignified to compare their hurt feelings to the true racism that PoC face. As Anthony Morgan puts it, “When you are so deeply invested in your privilege,..., racial equality feels like oppression”. It is impossible for a black person’s hatred for white people to affect their political, economic, or social opportunities, but it is a very real possibility the other way around. No one else benefits from the white supremacist system except for white people, so it is only fair for us to agree that only white people can be racist. The only way for us to escape this is to educate white people on what racism, in actuality, is. While we can hope this will eliminate all belief of reverse racism, it might never entirely work because of the white supremacist system that has been drilled into their heads since birth and the past colonial ideologies of Social Darwinism and the concept of imperialism.

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Regarding: Cases of Police Brutality

North Charleston patrolman Michael Thomas Slager open fired on Walter Scott, a black man, on April 4th 2015. After hitting him 5 times (four to the back and one to the ear), Slager put Scott’s body in handcuffs and laid his taser next to him in attempt to accuse Scott of taking it. Luckily, Feidin Santana, a Dominican immigrant witnessed the crime and captured it on video, and for some, this is all they need to reaffirm their belief that police lie. Slager claimed he felt threatened, but that is only due to his racial biases and the racial stereotypes that People of Colour are falsely accused of. In reality, he never threatened for his life, it was his sense of authority, moreover, his ego that was threatened. Its unbearably eerie how easily Scott’s and so many other’s deaths can be compared to slaves trying to escape from their masters or black sharecroppers in the 1800s who were being attacked by white supremacists. North Charleston has a population that is 47% black but a police department is incredible unproportional with it being 80% white. Data from 2011 to 2014 proved that 59% of white people feel they can trust and/or have confidence in police whereas only 37% of People of Colour feel the same way. A large portion of this is due to the harmful stereotype that all black people are inherently evil/criminal and this is only reinforced in people’s minds by the media’s correlation between People of Colour and guns, drugs, gang activity, and prior arrests. Racists think that the black people who are killed deserve it and that there is no such thing as racial profiling or anything of the like. Data shows that police in South Carolina shot a total of 209 suspects throughout the year of 2015 and, surprise, surprise, 101 of those were black and only 67 were white. This same thing happens all across america in predominantly black neighbourhoods with generally low incomes. Black people have to live in fear of police. For white people, the only reason to fear them is if you've committed a crime but for People of Colour a simple mishap of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can lead to “a situation where your life's in danger by someone who is supposed to be protecting you”, this is racism in it’s simplest form, practically textbook definition. And because there is next to none effort in white communities to change this, People of Colour are forced to think, and in my opinion have complete reason to do so, that whites just don’t care, or still view them as less-than a century and a half after slavery was abolished.

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My city is under spiritual flames.

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Regarding: Solutions for Racial Police Brutality

A pertinent question in our society today is whether it is possible for racial profiling to stop and if so, how do we go about doing that. Obviously, racial police brutality will not come to an end until the root problem, racism, is solved, but we can take precautions to prevent it. It is a know fact that stereotypes of African Americans cause police to shoot black suspects more readily than white suspects, so one solution would be to train police officers to unlearn their biases. They can perform psychological tests on police officers before they are hired to see if they have any violent tendencies, racial biases, or if they respond to stressful situations badly. Although police may be trained not to make rash decisions based on race in training, in action they might let their internal racial biases and fear control them in stressed situations, so this solution may not be perfect. Another solution is to hire more female officers. Women, on average, take up 12.7% of police departments and only are responsible for 5% of complaints against violence/brutality. Although women are less likely to use excessive force, they can still hold racial prejudices which will influence their professional decisions; just because a person is oppressed in one way, doesn’t mean they can’t be oppressive in another. Mirroring the racial diversity of the community can also prevent racial profiling. Currently, on average, police departments are 30% more white than their community and research done by the Colombian Law School proves that when the racial diversity of a police force reflects the population, incidents of police brutality decrease largely. Hiring more People of Colour, although it might help immensely, will not be able to entirely fix the problem because they may end up conforming to the ideologies of their white counterparts. This solution might be the most effective of them all: the usage of police body cameras. Although they were hesitant at first, police officers admitted that the use of body camera improved their behavior and collection of evidence, and dropped the number of civilian complaints drastically.

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Source

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Sources

Raoul Meyer and John Green. “Slavery- Crash Course US History #15.” Crash Course. (accessed April 16th 2017)

Raoul Meyer and John Green. “Reconstruction and 1876: Crash Course US History #22.” Crash Course. (accessed April 15th 2017)

Manisha Krishnan. “Dear White People, Please Stop Pretending Reverse Racism is Real.” Vice.

(accessed April 16th 2017)

Alexander Gray, Kevin. "South Carolina's Police State." Progressive (June 2015): 17. Advanced Placement Source, EBSCOhost (accessed April 18, 2017).

Kate Stringer. “We Already Know How to Reduce Police Racism and Violence.” YES! Magazine. (accessed April 17th, 2017)