Police Brutality And Racism

In May 2015, the U.S. was cited by the United Nations for police brutality and racial discrimination. At this major UN event—the Universal Periodic Review—over 100 countries critiqued American legislation and police training methods and recommended ways to end racial bias and use of excessive force in the police (UN Condemns US Gun Violence). Police brutality and institutional racism have been “cite-worthy” issues in the U.S. long before 2015, but what prompted the world to notice?

In February 2012, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, black 17-year-old, was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. After Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013, one of the many indignant responses was a tweet with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

In his article “Black Lives Matter is Living in the Past,” he argues while the dialogue around racially biased police brutality is important, it is essential that BLM also focus on black lives that are taken by other blacks. McWhorter does compliment BLM’s actions in regards to changing the relationship between black men and cops, but he argues that “a movement cannot make a real difference in 2015 by pretending that it's still 1965” and that their tactics need to change. Right now in the U.S. “black people in poor neighborhoods are in vastly more danger of being killed by young black men than by the occasional bad cop,” and that needs to be addressed as well (McWhorter). In response to the BLM justification that most people of any color are killed by another member of their race, McWhorter argues that “it's the proportions that are important—why do so many more black guys kill each other, numerically and proportionally?” He also criticizes BLM for disavowing to support the Democratic Party despite its adoption of the “gist” of their agenda, by saying “again, is this about getting things done or acting out?” He concludes that BLM needs to realize that "Black Lives Matter When Taken by Other Black People, Too" and start acting to make change rather than