African Americans Have Been Victims Of Crime Since The 1700s

African Americans get the most brutality in communities. “Over the last 500 years people of different race, especially African Americans, have encountered a pattern of state sanctioned violence and civil and human rights abuse. To enforce capitalist exploitation and racial oppression the government and its police, courts, prisons, and military have beaten, framed, murdered and executed private persons, and brutally repressed struggles for freedom, justice, and self-determination. (Sundiata,1)”. The African Americans began to fight back against the beating of their race with riots. These riots and brutality started during the middle 1900’s. The government also takes the responsibility for the actions and non-actions of the police officers during race riots and rebellions. But why do blacks feel like they get beaten and harassed by law enforcement? Over the years, police have come to a conclusion that just because someone of a different race is in a luxurious car, they must be dealing drugs or looking for trouble in the community. Law enforcement isn’t trying to harass the community by pulling

The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)

One night in a Florida gated community a young man named Trayvon Martin, was walking down the streets of a mostly white community, stopped by George Zimmerman who was a neighborhood watch resident.Mr. Martin was stopped for being “suspicious” and “up to no good” according to Mr.Zimmerman. Trayvon was fatally shot by Mr. Zimmerman out of “self defense”. Really “Self defense” he was carrying a bag of skittles and a Arizona Tea. This young man was nothing but harmless but was victimed for being African-American.George Zimmerman would rather later stand trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin was found not guilty,until April 2012 he was found guilty of second degree murder.Although there are positives and negatives of this argument, the Black Lives

A case of police brutality in Charlotte, North Carolina is the 2013 case of Jonathan Ferrell. Ferrell had been in a car accident and ran to a woman’s home for aid. The woman assumed someone was breaking in her home and called the police. The police found Ferrell near the scene of the car accident and he attempted to make his way towards them asking for help, when the footage on the dash camera show that police officer Randall Kerrick began to open fire at Ferrell shooting him ten times. Kerrick was not indicted by the jury after the judge declared a mistrial. Two years later Ferrell’s family is still fighting for justice. General Roy Cooper told the press “Kerrick did not follow his training during his encounter with Ferrell. ”Most of them [police officers] ...understand that officers must be held accountable when they do not follow their training --

This is proof that there is racial discrimination in law enforcement that affects police brutality. This also reinforces the culture of people of color being less human than white people, which takes its roots all the way back to slavery in America. When slavery was still prevalent in the United States, white people believed that black people(slaves), did not feel pain like they felt pain. After slavery was abolished, black people were still strongly regarded as inferior to white people and white people still saw them as wild creatures rather than human beings. White people saw themselves superior to every other race of people, so it was common for them to mistreat other races that weren’t white. This mindset is not as strong as it was in the past but, it is still strong enough to affect the choices police officers make during interactions with people of color. As a result of discrimination at the police level, many people have turned to court system’s to reach justice.

Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict defines police brutality as the use of excessive or unnecessary force by police against the public. Excessive force is explained to be any behavior or force beyond what is reasonably necessary in order to control a situation. It is a common misnomer that people believe some police use excessive force more often than not. What’s more concerning is most of the time people believe that this excessive force is usually focused upon the African American men, women, and children. This misnomer is typically found to be found in city settings where the population consists of mostly African Americans. The population make up causes the common belief to seem more true than it may otherwise appear.

Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.

African Americans in modern America have bound together in unity against inequality to help end the unnecessary murders and unjust police beatings. However, where did these tensions between police and African Americans begin? This question can be answered by looking at the history of police in America and why they were originally established. Police first came on to the scene in 1704 when Carolina established the nation’s first slave patrol that would turn into what we know today as the modern police. The slave patrol had the duty of searching for runaway slaves and returning them to their masters. Therefore, the original reason the police force was established was to deal with black slaves and it seems as if some officers today still hold that as their job title. However, this was just the beginning to the negative police encounters that many African Americans would have to endure. With the ratification of the 13th amendment and the freeing of the slaves the slave patrol became what is known as modern day police. During reconstruction the police began a war to create a new form of slavery, this form of slavery was known as convict leasing. Although, the 13th amendment legalized the enslavement of anyone convicted of a crime it seemed as if it was only used against African Americans. This new method of enslavement sky rocketed the rate of African American arrests and created new laws in the south such as the pig laws which sentenced anyone who stole a pig to 5 years in

On February 26, 2012 an unarmed black man is shot and killed by a neighborhood watch captain. Trayvon Martin, 18 and unarmed, was strolling through a neighborhood when he was then approached by George Zimmerman, an armed neighborhood watch captain. Not all of the details are clear, but it is known the two had a physical altercation. Suddenly, Martin gets shot and dies. Zimmerman claims he shot him for self defense.

leading up to the death of Trayvon Martin and questions if George Zimmerman was indeed guilty of second degree manslaughter. His lawyer, Mark O 'Mara, believes that the reason why this case had gone to court was due to Martin being black and Zimmerman being white. This leads us to question the reason why Martin was shot in the first place. According to O 'Mara, “George Zimmerman was never guilty of anything except firing the gun in self-defense.” Serving on the local neighborhood watch, Zimmerman felt it was his responsibility to protect his neighborhood from crime. The night of the incident, he called in the suspicion to the local authorities who did not authorize him to persue Martin. The events following his disreguard to this request are of debate, but the cuts found on Zimmerman 's head are proof that there was a struggle between the two; according to testimony Zimmerman claims that he was attacked by Martin who then bashed his head into the sidewalk. The lethal wound received by Martin was also considered in the verdict due to it being at an angle only capable if Martin had been leaning over Zimmerman. Although many speculate that that racial profiling was a key component of this investigation, the jury sided with Mr. Zimmerman and after being on trial for 16 months, he was released from custody following the hearing.

This case gave me an insight on things I never expected to be true I never knew a person could get away with murder/manslaughter. This case was greatly affected by race. George Zimmerman saw a young black man going home and for some reason thought he was a threat he probably sterotyped Trayvon, the moment he saw him. There was no reason to pull a gun Zimmerman was much bigger than Trayvon if there was a scuffle. Also since Zimmerman was never charged he has gone on to hurt other people such. George Zimmerman has anger issues and should have had more extensive screening. This has been proven by the following incidents:

An individual who has no knowledge of racism in America may think that once African Americans were given the same privileges as whites, racism would be extinct. This, however, is incorrect because racism is not only alive but thriving. The oppression of the African American community is still relevant today and happening everywhere. Where slavery and Jim Crow laws were banned, the war on drugs and mass incarceration of African Americans were created. It is evident “in the inner cities that the vast majority of young black men are either under the control of the criminal justice system or branded criminals for life” (Graff 126). The problem of mass incarceration ties into one of today’s other most pressing ethical issues concerning the African American community - police brutality. Mike Brown, Freddie Gray, and Tamir Rice are just a few of the many names that come to mind when one thinks of police brutality and the African Americans. The ethical issue of police brutality is very muddled because each case must be treated singularly, thus to not automatically blame the incident on racism. Although the “police are meant to protect and serve all United States citizens, for too many minority communities, police have become a source of fear, quick to resort to physical violence” (Onyemaobim 162). It may be, however, that with an increasing number of these incidents in recent years,

In Keen & Jacobs findings, they noted since the early 1970’s imprisonments in the United States have increased dramatically with African Americans and continued to grow in in the 1990s. Between 1983 and 1999, African Americans were arrested for violent crimes 7.7 times greater than whites. Keen & Jacobs (2009) further identified that hostility towards African-Americans were greater in neighborhoods dominated by African- Americans. Support for capital punishment was also noticeably higher for blacks. Other possible finding suggested that police officers made more arrests in neighborhoods dominated by African-Americans. States with larger African-American populations have higher imprisonment rates (Keen & Jacobs, 2009).

African Americans have been victims of racist and discriminatory practices since they were forcibly shipped to America in the 1600s (Chaney & Robertson, 2013). Racism is defined as a belief system that justifies the racial and ethnic inequality of minority members. Discrimination is a specific behavior aimed at denying persons of a particular race equal access to societal rewards. These two heinous attitudes and behaviors have been forcibly brought to the attention of the public by the media in scenarios of police brutality and unequal practices toward minority individuals; specifically African American men. Rodney King, Malice Green, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and Walter Scott are all African American men that

Today, there is a high number of black males that are incarcerated. People automatically assume when a police apprehends a black male that he will be going to jail. It is a well-established fact that racial and ethnic disparities in arrest and incarceration are astronomical (Kutateladze and Lawson 980). Statistics show that despite making up only two percent of the total United States population, African American males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four comprised more than fifteen percent of all deaths logged in 2015 by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police (alternet.org). Therefore, many black males no longer trust the police and think that the police are out to antagonize them. Even though the slavery of blacks ended in 1865, African Americans have since then still been mistreated and belittled. It is very scary situation once the people who are supposed to serve and protect begin enacting hate crime against blacks. The government may not say police brutality is a hate crime, but it is very much so.