Racial Profiling and Murder by Police
There's a mass without roofs
There's a prison to fill
There's a country's soul
That reads "post no bills"
There's a strike and a line of cops
Outside of the mill
There's the right to obey
And there's the right to kill
--Zack De La Rocha
This is America, home of the free. Here "law and order" is kept by a vigilant police force armed with semi-automatics and nightsticks. Here it is "law and order" to lynch blacks.
Two-hundred years since this country was founded on principles of equality before the law, the meaning of equality remains the same. Amadou Diallo was equal to all other poor urban blacks, and he got his punishment by the law. His killers were equal to all other guardians of the white elite, and they got...acquited.
The principle is well understood, invoking a strong Nazi-like patriotism in some. "It fills me with profound respect for being an American and for living in a country that has a trial by jury," announced New York Mayor Giulani after the acquital of four police officers who fired 41 shots at Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo as he stood outside his home in the Bronx.
Giuliani, of course, clearly understands what it means to be "American." Liberal apologists who seek to explain the meaning of the shooting and the acquital are the ones who are missing the mark.
Forty-one shots are not a mistake. The acquital was not just a flaw in the system. This is the system, and it is one rooted in white male dominance and the rule of force. The system is working perfectly fine as long as cops stay out of prison and are free to use deadly force at will.
"But the system is supposed to treat people equally," some will say. Right-wingers eat this one up. They understand that equality, in any meaningful sense of the word, is not one of the tenents of American capitalism.
Indeed, it is inequality which maintains the system. The majority must never enjoy the same rights and priveleges that the wealthy few do. A police force, whose function is to protect property and those who own property, is needed to enforce minority rule.
Police Brutality Police work is dangerous. Sometimes police put in situations that excessive force is needed. But, because some officers use these extreme measures in situations when it is not, police brutality should be addressed. The use of excessive force may or may not be large problem, but it should be looked into by both the police and the public. For those people who feel racism is not a factor in causing the use of excessive force, here is a startling fact. In Tampa Bay, Florida, five men died while in the custody of the
In the act the actress who plays Sheila is told to act as though the
Although the U.S. Constitution states that “all men are created equal,” during America’s early days it only applied to upper class white men. This upsets many people in the United States. When the Constitution first came into play, only the rich white men were treated right. As the years progressed, more and more whites
Economic injustice and oppression occur because someone benefits from them. It is in the interest of someone to create and perpetuate oppressions (pg. 17). If these groups of people that are oppressed were not pitted against one another, an uprising of phenomenal proportions could occur. This is exactly what the rich, white, male, Christian, heterosexual able-bodied society (a.k.a.: The Norm) does not want to happen! Racism, sexism, and classism are necessities for the survival of The Norm.
Racial profiling in the dictionary is “the assumption of criminality among ethnic groups: the alleged policy of some police to attribute criminal intentions to members of some ethnic groups and to stop and question them in disproportionate numbers without probable cause (“Racial Profiling”).” In other words racial profiling is making assumptions that certain individuals are more likely to be involved in misconduct or criminal activity based on that individual’s race or ethnicity. Racial profiling propels a brutalizing message to citizens of the United States that they are pre-judged by the color of their skin rather than who they are and this then leads to assumptions of ruthlessness inside the American criminal justice system. With race-based assumptions in the law enforcement system a “lose-lose” situation is created due to America’s diverse democracy and destroys the ability to keep the criminal justice system just and fair. Although most police officers perform their duties with fairness, honor, and dedication, the few officers who portray to be biased then harm the whole justice system resulting in the general public stereotyping every law enforcement officer as a racial profiler (Fact Sheet Racial Profiling). When thinking about racial profiling many people automatically think it happens only to blacks but sadly this is mistaken for far more ethnic groups and races such as Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, Native Americans, and many more are racially profiled on a day to day basis. Many people believe racial profiling to be a myth because they see it as police officers merely taking precautions of preventing a crime before it happens, but in reality racial profiling has just become an approved term for discrimination and unjust actio...
Have you ever been followed by store officials or security while shopping in a department store? At first, all of the attention can be flattering but quickly becomes insulting once you realize they’re not following you to offer any assistance. Instead because of how you look you fit a certain profile that causes store officials to think you’ve come to their store to steal. This type of behavior is called racial profiling. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, racial profiling refers to the discrimination practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Citizens need to be more aware of racial profiling and make laws that racial profiling should be illegal. Racial profiling is carried out by law enforcement airport security, and other security personnel that look to profile the minorities for no reason. Heather Sally Newton Driscoll ebscohost.com stated “The practice of profiling is rooted in centuries of discrimination and is based on stereotypes that have long been disproved. Profiling holds on entire population accountable for the committed by a small minority”.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law of racial segregation in public. It was known as separate but equal. Yet one cannot be equal, because Cauca...
Sheila seems to agree with her mother most of the time , which we see
Racism is a common and ancient social problem in the U.S.. African Americans spend many years on solving the problem. From the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Movements, they consistently fought against racism and gradually gained the justice and rights. During that time, many famous people were born, such as Martin Luther King. Because of their efforts, nowadays, even the president of the US, Barack Obama, has African American blood. However, racism becomes a headline in the news again recently. In the past few months, protests have happened in many big cities like New York and Washington. African Americans went on the street protesting against the discipline of the police department. They claimed that they
Institutional racism is racism that is shown through government organizations and political institutions. In a report done by David Baldus in 1998, he discovered that when it comes to the death penalty, blacks are more likely sentenced to death than whites, and those who kill whites are more likely to be given the death penalty than the killing of blacks (Touré). In several cases and studies, there is a substantial amount of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In fact, the 1978 McClesky conviction has proven to support Baldus’s study in 1998. Warren McClesky, an African American male, was found guilty of killing a Georgia police officer. The legal team who represented McClesky exposed a study that showed how biased racial inequality is in the death penalty, but the court contended the argument because “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” (Touré). Furthermore, race has always been a serious matter in the Supreme Court and other government administrations, but they fail to recognize the
To look closely at many of the mechanisms in American society is to observe the contradiction between constitutional equality and equality in practice. Several of these contradictions exist in the realm of racial equality. For example, Black s often get dealt an unfair hand in the criminal justice system. In The Real War on Crime, Steven Donziger explains,
Police brutality and racial profiling dates back to the 1700’s in the United States(Rushing). Unfortunately, such treatment by police continues today when police are expected to hold the civic duty to protect and serve. Mistreatment by police is just the start in most cases, when citizens fight back it becomes “brutal”. Police brutality by definition means “The use of any force exceeding that reasonably to accomplish a lawful police purpose.” Police brutality can occur in many different ways with the most common being physical harm. Although that is a big problem, there are other cases of Police brutality that involve acts of false arrest, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, intimidation, etc. An act that can be seen as police brutality could be a criminal running from the cops and an officer shoots a victim with a taser. Many cases of physical harm are police using excessive force to contain and arrest any individual. Since many accounts of police brutality have been directed towards minorities, these cases turn into acts of racial profiling. Racial profiling is the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. Let 's say for example Trayvon Martin, a simple 17 year old black male walking home from a gas station was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch member. This being one of the many
From an equal justice perspective, “all people should be treated equally before the law and equality may best be achieved through individual discretion in the justice process” (Siegel and Worrall, 2013, page 20). Through this perspective, all criminals who commit the same crime would be equally subjected to the same form of punishment. Thus extralegal factors, which include the person’s gender, age, race or previous criminal activity, would not be considered by the judge, when they sentence the severity of the punishment. This limits the injustice within the system and any unfair treatment an offender a may receive while in the system. It also sets clear and rigid guidelines for judges to uphold during sentencing.
Police brutality and racism are an ongoing problem in our country. It goes back hundreds of years with no sign of it stopping. Police officers have been abusing their power since they have been around. Abuse against African American males by white police officers is getting out of hand. Most officers face no punishment at, and all there is a special code that they follow. Officers follow The “Blue Code of Silence”, which is a code that means they look out for one another. Even with video recording devices, the news, and social media, these events still go on. African Americans take most of the abuse and it looks like there is no end to this. This is a reflection on our society, and it makes us look ignorant to what is going on around us.