African American Crime: Cause and Effect
Works Cited Not Included
During the 1900's to the 1930's hundreds of thousands of Blacks moved from the South to the North, a period noted as the urban transformation. Many wanted to escape the atrocities of the South where they were haunted by slavery and hunted by angry ex-slaveholder's. Their expectations of the North were unreal and often too hopeful. They had hoped for jobs in the cities but were greeted by overcrowded slums and angry immigrants. Black people immediately fell victim to race riots. White people joined together in their hatred of blacks. They did not want to lose their jobs to "savages." Immigrants already had low paying jobs and black people would take even lower wages. Major race riots broke out into seven popular urban cities, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The riots killed mostly black people however whites were also killed. There was only so much that black people would stand for. It was just a matter of time before chaos would break out. When it did, the violence was record breaking. Even black on black violence grew to unbelievable levels. There are many factors involved in the explanation of Black crime during the urban transformation. Blacks came into the city with roots tied deep into slavery; they were raised on controlled plantations where power was demonstrated by violence. Then, they moved into the frustrating environment of overpopulated city slums where they were not wanted. Also, the media instigated violent behavior on both sides; black and white. Lastly the law was discriminatory and left many Blacks to settle their own disputes. The North and South were left in a state of mayhem....
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...iminal justice that replaced slaveholders' authority was probably the most important reason for the violence." (210) The courts were striving to keep blacks at a level similar to slave laws. In this state of chaos it is no wonder why black crime was steadily rising.
Many whites tried to explain black crime by stating that black people were inherently evil and violent, that they were biologically inferior. Those statements were obviously incorrect as it is clear why black crime was growing during the urban transformation. Blacks were subject to the culture that slavery instilled in them. They were also living in overcrowded areas were frustration led to violence. The media was aggravating already problematic situations. Finally the discriminatory court system failed to protect and serve the black people. The evidence clearly explains black violence.
During the four decades following reconstruction, the position of the Negro in America steadily deteriorated. The hopes and aspirations of the freedmen for full citizenship rights were shattered after the federal government betrayed the Negro and restored white supremacist control to the South. Blacks were left at the mercy of ex-slaveholders and former Confederates, as the United States government adopted a laissez-faire policy regarding the “Negro problem” in the South. The era of Jim Crow brought to the American Negro disfranchisement, social, educational, and occupational discrimination, mass mob violence, murder, and lynching. Under a sort of peonage, black people were deprived of their civil and human rights and reduced to a status of quasi-slavery or “second-class” citizenship. Strict legal segregation of public facilities in the southern states was strengthened in 1896 by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. Racists, northern and southern, proclaimed that the Negro was subhuman, barbaric, immoral, and innately inferior, physically and intellectually, to whites—totally incapable of functioning as an equal in white civilization.
Blacks were driven out of skilled trades and were excluded from many factories. Racist’s whites used high rents and there was enormous pressure to exclude blacks from areas inhabited by whites.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Through 1917-1923 there was a huge reign of terror against African Americans, where white mobs would show an abundant amount of violence and torture towards blacks (Rosewood Report, 1993, pg3). From Chicago to Tulsa, to Omaha, East St. Louis, and many communities in between, and finally to Rosewood, white mobs would come and burn down the black communities (Rosewood Report, 1993 pg3). During the second decade of the twentieth century, African Americans began to leave the South in record numbers to escape the oppressions of segregation. For many years, white Floridians had seriously discussed sending local blacks to a foreign country or to a western region of the United States. Many white had such a low opinion of blacks that they were prepared to treat them in the most inhumane fashion whenever they felt themselves threatened by the minority (Rosewood Report, 1993, pg5).Napoleon Broward, who was the governor, proposed that Congress purchased territory, either forgiven or domestic, and transport blacks to such regions where they could live separate lives and govern themselves (Rosewood Report, 1993, pg4). Racial hostilities in the North were enhanced by immigration of black southerners and the expansion black neighborhoods into white residential areas (Rosewood Report, 1993, pg7).
Cleveland’s black population was quite small before the “Great Migration” in 1915, but then began to gradually increase. This meant that black associations and leadership depended very much on white support. The socioeconomic position of blacks, however, at the same time, got worse as whites got stricter on discriminatory control over employment and public places. After 1915, Cleveland’s black population grew quickly, starting racist trends. One of the results was segregation of the living conditions of blacks, their jobs, and in social aspects. As isolation increased, however, this began the growth of new leaders and associations that responded to the needs of the ghettos. By 1930, the black ghetto had expanded; Cleveland’s blacks had increased class stratification in their community, as well as an increasing sense of cultural harmony in response to white prejudice.
The East St. Louis riots, of May and July 1917 were an outbreak of labor- and race-related violence that caused the death of at least 40 African Americans and approximately $400,000 in property damage(Hornsby, 2011; Hazen, 2004). the riots were stirred up by white resentment of African Americans working in wartime industry.the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South toward industrial centers across the northern and Midwestern United States was well underway. For example, blacks were arriving in St. Louis during Spring 1917 at the rate of 2,000 per week(Hornsby, 1993). When
In the late 1800's, more and more blacks became victims of lynchings and Jim Crow laws that segregated blacks. To reduce racial conflicts, I advised blacks to stop demanding equal rights and to simply get along with whites. I urged whites to give black better jobs.
The increase in population due to the Great Migration led Chicago to be the nation’s fastest growing city. In the city, homicide rates increased dramatically. The nature of homicide among African Americans in Chicago changed when the traditional impulsive violence between young boys became family violence or fights with acquaintances. Essentially, the Southern African Americans who moved to northern cities for freedom still experienced discrimination in jobs and housing from whites living in the neighborhoods prior. Many of them became frustrated about this and proceeded to demonstrate that through violence. In result of the increased violence, juvenile courts were developed. To address the concerns of juvenile delinquency, Chicago initially advocated courts to punish them for the acts of violence. The courts were filled with cases of violence between races due to the increasing racial tensions in neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Often, racist comments would be made, or an African American would fight against segregation or speak out and there would be a fight. Acts of violence became more and more common throughout the city and the juvenile courts were only one way to attempt to solve it. In Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era, it is said that the violence in Chicago was “the
Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Since there is a mass incarceration of African Americans, it is believed that African Americans are the cause of the severe increase of crimes. This belief has been sent out implicitly by the ruling class through the media. The media send out coded messages that are framed in abstract neutral language that play on white resentment that targets minorities. Disproportionate arrest is the result of racial disparities in the criminal justice system rather than disproportion in offenders. The disparities in the sentencing procedure are ascribed to racial discrimination. Because police officers are also biased, people of color are more likely to be investigated than whites. Police officers practice racial profiling to arrest African Americans under situations when they would not arrest white suspects, and they are more likely to stop African Americans and see them as suspicious (Alexander 150-176). In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and her comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. Fine believes it is critical to draw attention to the reality in why African Americans are being arrested at a much higher rate. This article reflects the ongoing racial issue by focusing on the injustice in treatment by police officers and the youth of color who are victims. This article is successful in being persuasive about the ongoing racial iss...
Disproportionate Incarceration of African Americans The disproportionate numbers of African Americans in the prison system is a very serious issue, which is not usually discussed in its entirety. However, it is quite important to address the matter because it ultimately will have an effect on African Americans as a whole. Of the many tribulations that plague Americans today, the increase in the number of African American men and women in prisons is unbelievable. It would be nave to say that the increase is due to the fact that more African Americans are committing crimes now than before.
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow did is represented the anti-Black racism. Further on, In 1970’s the term “War on Drugs” was coined by President Richard Nixon . Later President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war. In reality the war had little to do with drug crime and a lot to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a strategy of used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as national threat. Therefore, they called for a national anti-drug policy, the policy began pushing for the involvement of the police force and military in drug prohibition efforts. The government did believe that blacks or minorities were a cause of the drug problem. They concentrated on inner city poor neighborhoods, drug related violence, they wanted to publicize the drug war which lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. The war on drugs targeted and criminalized disproportionably urban minorities. There for, “War on Drugs” results in the incarceration of one million Americans ...
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System “We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment,” stated Senator Russ Feingold. Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in 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).
Although racism seemed to be lower in Harlem and the Northern states, for many Blacks racism was at an all time high. The Ku Klux Klan reached membership of astronomical proportions. They marched in Washington DC and handed out membership cards bashing minorities. Less educated Blacks, or those who couldn’t make it to Harlem, were often deemed ignorant. There was a barrier built between those Blacks with an education, and those without.
Scapegoating is when a person irrationally blames their failures on others, therefore not taking responsibility themselves. The “scapegoating theory says that prejudiced people believe they are society’s victims” (Schaefer 38). It is always someone else’s fault that things do not go their way and the person “… transfers the responsibility for failure to some vulnerable group” (Schaefer 38).