In addition, the paper analyzes how the problem was resolved and the outcome of deliberations on the issue. It is the view of this paper that conflict from resources and the sense of threat to whites by blacks in the society was the underlying cause of the riots. The paper concludes by reiterating Martin Luther king Junior’s call for the coexistence of all people and their judgment to be based on their characters and not their skin color (Lan, 2009). Riots description Causes of the riots in Cincinnati Direct murder by police Cincinnati riots were precipitated by a wide range of events that saw massive discrimination of blacks in a manner that reflected flashbacks of slavery. Between 1995 and 2001, Lan (2009) report that about fifteen people were executed by police or lost their lives in the hands of the security agents.
American Sociological review 57, 680-690. Stafford, M., Warr, M. “Re-conceptualizing Deterrence Theory.” Pp.394-399 in Criminological Theory: Past to Present, edited by Cullen, T.F., Agnew, R. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright, T.R. (1997) Armed Robbers in Action: Stickups and Street Culture. Chapter 35( pp.443 453) Reviving Classical theory: Deterrence and Rational Choice Theories: Northeastern University Press
Economic inequality describes the gap between the wealthy and the poor. Individuals are given a socio- economic status based on their social class. Jacob and O’Brien (1998) concluded that police killings are more associated with the economic gaps between whites and blacks. As a result, cities with more African Americans are often targeted by police violence because of the poor urban condition and the economic inequality (Jacob and O’Brien 1998). These urban conditions include poor living lifestyle, low income, low employment, unsanitary environment, and dangerous crime related habits.
Irwin, A.R, & Gross, A.M. (2008) Journal of family violence 10, 3337-350 Violence on Media: Journal of the American social science. "Social Psychological. 7 June 2009 . Wood, W., Wong, F. Y., & Chachere, J. G. (1991). Effects of media violence on viewers aggression in unconstrained social interaction.Psychological Bulletin, 109, 371-383.
Retrieved from http://ylpr.yale.edu/ Staples, R. (2011, ). White Power, Black Crime, and Racial Politics. The Black Scholar, 41, 31-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.5816/blackscholar.41.4.0031 Tamborini, R., Huang, R., Mastro, D., & Nabashi-Nakahara, R. (2007, December). The Influence of Race, Heuristics, and Information Load on Judgements of Guilt and Innocence. Communication Studies, 58(), 341-358. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10510970701648566
Racism had an impact on black men, from various sectors and individuals of being a racist that creates inequality. Black men are targeted by the police, the use of stop and search because of the suspicion of carrying dangerous weapons and illegal drugs. There is a corroboration that the police actions towards racism and race equality are seen with the over representation of black crimes. They are being labelled with different names such as Black on Black crime. These inequalities affect their lives because they find it difficult to fit in the society, suffer from poverty and being jobless.
The racial disparity, hardship, discrimination and loss of life of minorities living in the inner city during the 1990’s occurred due to social injustices and misinterpreting how to resolve issues of drug trafficking and violence in the inner city. Clockers is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee. In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of street level drug dealers sell and distribute, working for a local drug lord. The film is an adapation of the 1992 novel by Richard Price, who helped in writing the screenplay with Lee. The “clockers” are low-level teenage drug dealers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Brooklyn (Clockers, 1995).
(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.
The focus points of this paper will include racial biases in sentencing and arrest, differential association, and poverty (socioeconomic status/single parent homes). Sentencing structures in the United States have always been biased on account of race. As we move closer to the 21st century we find that money seems to be a way African Americans can avoid playing the race game. Unfortunately many African Americans who are tried in court come from low socioeconomic neighborhoods and cannot afford to pay their way out of the race game. America has evolved to harsher sentencing methods since the 1980’s, especially amongst crimes related to drugs.
Concentrated poverty and the creation of the underclass is the accrual of many social determinants but none more prominent than racial segregation. Douglas Massey, one of the leading experts in residential segregation in the US outlines this phenomenon in his work “American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass”. Using regression analysis, he studied the effect of racial and economic segregation and found that in cities with no racial segregation that blacks and whites showed equal rates of poverty, but in racially segregated areas blacks were much more likely to be impoverished. The data reveals that racial segregation and income segregation within race contribute decisively to poverty concentration which caused the deterioration of neighborhoods and communities (Massey 1990). In sum, this effect of racial segregation exposes the whites and blacks to different socioeconomic places or environments and leave the economic base of the of the poor blacks vulnerable to any sort of economic downturn in its economic fortunes (Massey 1990).