Discussion of police practices and questions of their authority are unique to the Sentinel because of their dominantly black audience. In other newspapers police brutality was mentioned, but according to “Burn Baby Burn,” the white residents of Los Angeles were “blithely unaware” of the extent to which police had domination and power of fear over these communities and so could not relate to the distrust and resentment towards police. “A Tale of Two Riots” further evokes the leadership role of government social programs when it discusses the unequal opportunity blacks have for upward mobility (Pleasant). Because of an inequality in income, housing, and salaries there are many more blacks in poor communities.
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.
In this case, the police felt like they were allowed to beat Rodney King because they were in a higher class (Police office>Taxi driver) and their race is in the majority group of this country (White>Black). This is an ongoing issue in our world today and there are many cases where the minorities are getting attacked for no serious reason other than the fact that they are a minority. With all the cases of black people getting shot by white cops, it still shows us how powerful race and class
Racial equality is an illusion. In the criminal justice system, African Americans and other minorities are targeted by police officers because of the color of their skin. Minorities face many obstacles to reach their freedom, even though laws states everyone should be treated equal. Minorities are more likely to be stopped at traffic stops, due to the color of their skin. In “Racial Profiling”, Jost states that minorities, including President Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, feel profiled and judged based on the color of their skin while at traffic stops (1).
I believe that the intended audience of this documentary was the African Americans of LA trying to showcase to their Caucasian counterparts that the struggles that African Americans are faced with daily led ultimately reaching their tipping point and reacting to years of being undervalued by whites. Back to the Hood was targeting the police administration to fix their corruption amongst their ranks. In Back to the Hood the viewer learns out of 600 cases of police brutality only two policemen were found guilty, this led to the African American minority being unhappy because the minorities are usually the ones beaten. Chaney & Robertson (2014) reports that “from January 1- June 30, 2012, one Black person was killed by law enforcement or someone acting in such a capacity every 36 hours.” (Chaney & Robertson, 2014, p.109) Also they found “69% of those who lost their lives were between the ages of 13 and 31 years old.” (Chaney & Robertson 2014, p.109)This goes hand in hand with the argument of Back to the
Many blacks viewed the migration as a well inspired deliverance from the land of suffering. The south could be hostile, but the north could be careful, cold, and lonely. The reason why the Chicago race riots was ludicrous was because of the Eugene Williams situation and doing that time thirty-eight people died 23 (African American and 15 white) and over five hundred were injured. You can relate this back to what’s going on in present time with the police brutality how they are killing African American teens for no reason just because they believe they are up to no good. The Eugene Williams situation really set things off that’s why Chicago had that big riot just like the one in Baltimore with the Mike Brown brutality and
If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the not guilty verdict of the four Los Angeles policemen that were facing excessive force charges. The not guilty verdict may have been the initial cause, but the riots were not about Rodney King, they were about greater issues. Some of these issues were black versus white, blacks and Hispanics versus the police, blacks versus Koreans, and poor versus rich. The riots were do to all the underlying festering rage that had been building up in the residents of Los Angeles and the disbelief that police even when caught on tape, could get away with such brutality.
It is very unfair for them but that is the society we live in. Even though many “Black People” do live in the ghettos, it is unjust to tie them with most crimes such as gang wars, drive by shootings and thefts. The media contributes to 90 percent of these stereotypes (Geek). Like in the inner city African Americans are criticized for their actions, while the Latin Americans are blamed for most drug Page 2
The perception of racism towards African Americans in the United States is shown through both current American novels and films. Nearly every novel and film made today portrays a sense of racism towards African Americans and continually has the African American gangster and the white man hero. Unfortunately, many African Americans are categorized compared to whites as less qualified, educated and trustworthy. More specifically, the novel Southland acknowledged a different racial perception of jobs towards whites and people of color in relation to being a police officer. White people are continually represented as the proper, social and economical power by what jobs they are given and the actions they take.
Racial Tensions and Supremacy During the 20th century, racism was a prevalent issue throughout the country. It often caused social tensions between people of different races living in the same community, resulting in violence and disruptions. In the film Do the Right Thing, the director, Spike Lee, portrayed racism accurately by addressing the discrimination against black people. Throughout the film, characters were transformed, stereotypes were broken, and the audience knew more information than the characters in the movie. Lee’s theme was to show people that blacks should “fight the power,” or superiority, caused by racial supremacy of white people by establishing a balance of power, fighting the stereotypes, and uniting together against the white people.