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Racial bias within the US judicial system
Racial prejudice in the court system
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The article “Interracial Rape Cases in North Carolina” reminds me one of Harper Lee’s famous novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” as Tom Robinson was accused from raping Mayella. The entire trial, to the guilty verdict, were all racially biased. Yet, there is a long way to go for the world to get rids of its injustices, and injustices will comply with the society for many years to come. Race and inequality are often related together because of the racial segregation in the 1800s. During that time, racial inequalities had increased dramatically. To study this scenario, the article “Interracial Rape Cases in North Carolina” portrayed several evidences of how blacks slaves were falsely accused rape; they seem hopeless and eventually sentenced to death. Yet they did have evidences to prove them innocent, however, everything does not go as was hoped. What it was like …show more content…
First, in State vs Jesse case; Jesse, a fourteen years old slave, was charged for both rape and assault upon a white female. It was obvious that Jesse would get an automatic execution for his crime. However, due to his professed age complicated the matter of the case. There were no proofs to convince Jesse was fourteen because birthday of slaves not to be recorded during that time. Under the act of 1823, when a color has been committed for a rape upon a white female, he cannot object, and stripped him under protection law. Jesse was defenseless, the court did not give any leniency toward the black slave, and was sentenced to death. There was no attention to his age rather than because of his color which make the public view him as an
Four black sharecroppers (Roger Malcom, Dorothy Malcom, George Dorsey and Mae Murray Dorsey) are brutally murdered by a group of white people. The murders attracted national attention, but the community was not willing to get involved. The community was not fazed by these brutal murders but, by the fact that this incident got national attention. They were even more astounded that the rest of the nation even cared. In this book Laura Wexler shows just how deep racism goes. After reading the book I discovered that Fire in a Canebrake has three major themes involving racism. The first is that racism obstructs progression. The second is history repeats itself. The last theme is that racism can obscure the truth. This lynching, in particular, marks a turning point in the history of race relations and the governments’ involvement in civil rights. In the end this case still remains unsolved. No concept of the
In her Fire in a Canebrake, Laura Wexler describes an important event in mid-twentieth century American race relations, long ago relegated to the closet of American consciousness. In so doing, Wexler not only skillfully describes the event—the Moore’s Ford lynching of 1946—but incorporates it into our understanding of the present world and past by retaining the complexities of doubt and deception that surrounded the event when it occurred, and which still confound it in historical records. By skillfully navigating these currents of deceit, too, Wexler is not only able to portray them to the reader in full form, but also historicize this muddled record in the context of certain larger historical truths. In this fashion, and by refusing to cede to a desire for closure by drawing easy but inherently flawed conclusions regarding the individuals directly responsible for the 1946 lynching, Wexler demonstrates that she is more interested in a larger historical picture than the single event to which she dedicates her text. And, in so doing, she rebukes the doubts of those who question the importance of “bringing up” the lynching, lending powerful motivation and purpose to her writing that sustains her narrative, and the audience’s attention to it.
Assumptions from the beginning, presumed the Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with slavery. Slavery, though, contained an intimacy between the races that the Jim Crow South did not possess. Woodward used another historian’s quote to illustrate the familiarity of blacks and whites in the South during slavery, “In every city in Dixie,’ writes Wade, ‘blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.” (14) Slavery brought about horrible consequences for blacks, but also showed a white tolerance towards blacks. Woodward explained the effect created from the proximity between white owners and slaves was, “an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos.” (15) The lifestyle between slaves and white owners were familiar, because of the permissiveness of their relationship. His quote displayed how interlocked blacks...
In the 1930’s a plethora of prejudiced persons are present amidst the prominent Scottsboro trials, a seven-year-long case consisting of false rape allegations made against nine black boys from Scottsboro. When citizens fail to acknowledge their own preconceived ideas and look past the prejudice present in society, justice cannot be served. In the Scottsboro case, the court of Alabama disregards the societal issues surrounding racial discrimination and endorses the guilty verdict and conviction of the nine African American boys. Failing to look past their own personal biases, the jury ignores the unquestionable evidence that would support the boys’ case. Instead, the jury focuses on their predilection
In this story it clearly shows us what the courts really mean by freedom, equality, liberty, property and equal protection of the laws. The story traces the legal challenges that affected African Americans freedom. To justify slavery as the “the way things were” still begs to define what lied beneath slave owner’s abilities to look past the wounded eyes and beating hearts of the African Americans that were so brutally possessed.
Several groups of white and black men rode the trains in the thirties for transportation. One night a group of white men started a fight with the black men in the train, which led to them getting kicked off. Later on in the case it is proved that the white men start the fight because both of the men have different stories and one of them admits to starting it all. After the white men were kicked off of the train it was ridden to the next stop somewhere in Alabama. Upon arriving at the station the black men and the white women were arrested for vagrancy. While talking to the police the women accused all of the black men of raping them. These women were known prostitutes of the area but their word was still taken over the black men who were accused. Twelve days later the trial took place. There were many witnesses that held bias towards the black men. One acquaintance of the women was a white lady who refused to support the lies that were coming out of the white women's mouths. One physician stated that two of the men were so badly crippled that they were incapable of committing such a crime. This wa...
One of the things that was the most prominent after the Reconstruction and that takes a major role in “They Say”, was the lynching of African Americans. In “They Say”, Ida B. Wells must rush back home to Memphis, because of a riot, in which deputies were shot by negroes (Davidson, 124). After the shooting of these deputies, the negro men were put in jail, and later taken out by people, which then lynched them (Davidson, 125). Lynching of negroes was becoming so common, that people expected to see them in newspapers even if they took place in small towns (Davidson, 114). Blacks would be hanged and tortured for petty reasons that caused no one any real harm. Ida B. Wells did some research on lynching and found that many, were supposedly because of rapes to white women. However, Wells discovered that there were no rapes, rather the relationships were consensual, and it was just white men that tried to maintain the “purity” of their white women (Davidson, 155). Wells was an activist against lynching and she tried to show her views on her newspaper. She first realized that government did not take care of them and urged her fellow African Americans to leave town and try to settle in another place (Davidson, 150). She later wrote a speech against lynching and said that relationships between black men and white women were consensual not rape (Davidson, 156). Whites were outraged and even threaten to kill her. Although Wells’s accusation were true, she was not able to make any drastic
The meaning and penalties of rape have progressed throughout the history of America to ensemble the mindset of the time. Records show that a man in the seventeenth century was convicted of attempted rape if "he used enticement and then force toward a woman, driven by the sinful lusts that raged within him...and he allowed her...to scare or fight him off" (Dayton 238). Unfortunately, this definition was not always taken at face value. The leading men of the seventeenth century, likely white men, reformed this definition in a variation of ways to work in their favor when suspected of rape. It can be determined from study of historical information that the reason there are fewer reported rapes against white males in the seventeenth century and more against non-white males was because women gave in to a society driven by the influence and governance of white males in the legal system. This concept is demonstrated through a look into the outcome of a number of rape cases against both white men and non-white men, through an understanding of the helpless station of women, and through a view at the basis of the white man's resentment toward the non-white male: their view of the non-white male as the "other."
Situations or moreover things that occurred throughout this story seemed to affect or better yet impact the African Americans depicted in this reading differently. Rape being one of them. Particularly this left a lo...
Turner, Billy. 1986. “Race and Peremptory Challenges During Voir Dire: Do Prosecution and Defense Agree?” Journal of Criminal Justice 14: 61-69.
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
In the article “Violence and the Rights of African Americans in Civil War-Era Indiana: The Case of James Hays”, Richard F. Nation main argument focuses on the treatment of African American during the mid to late 1800’s by the criminal justice system of America, especially that of Indiana. During this period in time African-American were “free”, but did not have the same rights as Caucasians had (Nation, R. F. 2004, pg.215 &216). The few rights that African-American had were easily violated in the court of law when the case was against a Caucasian male or female do to the racial inequality that African-American faced (Nation, R. F. 2004, pg.215 &216). James Hays case showed how even when the court was provided with proof from an African-American against a Caucasian, the chances of the African-American winning was improbable (Nation, R. F. 2004, pg.222, 223 & 229).
This research essay discusses racial disparities in the sentencing policies and process, which is one of the major factors contributing to the current overrepresentation of minorities in the judicial system, further threatening the African American and Latino communities. This is also evident from the fact that Blacks are almost 7 times more likely to be incarcerated than are Whites (Kartz, 2000). The argument presented in the essay is that how the laws that have been established for sentencing tend to target the people of color more and therefore their chances of ending up on prison are higher than the whites. The essay further goes on to talk about the judges and the prosecutors who due to different factors, tend to make their decisions
In the article, Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist, the author, Angela Davis, discusses on the creation of the myth of the black rapist. This article brings two main ideas together to in order to make a valid argument to why both claims are false and hold no legitimacy. Davis argues that one was created in order to cover up for the other I order to veil the true offenders of sexual abuse. Davis also elaborates on the issue by adding to the argument and stating that white women are also being affected by these myths in a negative way because of the women’s bodies are being perceived as a right.