An Analysis Of Sterling Brown's Poem Southern Cop

In the poem ‘Southern Cop,’ Sterling A. Brown uses an array of rhetorical devices to reiterate the poem’s purpose. One of the rhetorical devices he uses is parallel structure, which he uses to express the the other two rhetorical devices in a more expressive way. He also uses sarcasm throughout the poem to show the underlying harm being caused by the casual approach to the problem. . Brown also uses understatement, expressing the shooting of the negro as lesser than it should be taken (if it was real.) Sterling A. Brown uses these devices to express the poems purpose.

On August 14, 2014, the infamous case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, took place. A police officer shot an unarmed black teenager after an incident which was clouded in unclear details. At first, no one really knew whether the officer had been in the right to shoot Brown, or what the circumstances were for either side of the incident. However, eventually, the details started to not matter. The events around Michael Brown’s case became the spark that ignited a nationwide movement to fight against police brutality towards minorities, specifically African Americans. Protesters of police violence toward minorities created a phrase that was used all over the country after Brown’s death: “hands up, don’t shoot”. Many have used the events behind Brown’s death as a springboard to consider what makes a criminal. One side of the issue claims that race directly affects criminality, while others believe class to be the cause of criminality.

In the world today the color of your skin implies more than we might suggest. The topic that I have chosen to analyze is Police Brutality. Police brutality is often affiliated with racial profiling. It is frequently said that we live in a “white man’s world” yet the white race is by account not the only race in America. Recently, the death by police rate has immensely expanded. African Americans are the number one victims in Police Brutality. Police uniforms are utilized to speak power, yet they misuse their authority by utilizing "self-preservation" to conceal their homicides.

Police Departments use appropriate force when dealing with the public?” argues that, “In 2006, NYPD fired 50 bullets at 23 year old Sean Bell and his friends” (“Police Brutality” 4). Also another example, “Police shot 41 rounds at Diallo, hitting him 19 times” (“Stop and Frisk” 3). The fact that NYPD fired 50 bullets at three minorities and Diallo getting shot 41 times and hit 19 times are both unnecessary and overkill. These facts prove that unnecessary force and overkill are still both relevant to modern day society because they both show how it is overkill to fire that many bullets at citizens and how other precautions could have been taken into consideration before the use of unnecessary force. Harper Lee demonstrates social injustice in “To Kill a Mockingbird” with the injustice of Tom Robinson’s case with no circumstantial evidence to convict Robinson in the 1930’s. In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Atticus states,” The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place” (Lee 271). The fact that the state did not have enough circumstantial evidence to directly show that Tom Robinson committed the crime points to racial discrimination because at the time, an African American would be convicted of their crime even if they committed no crime at

In 1986, Brent Staples wrote a prose essay writing about his experiences because of his color. To this day, his essay is still relevant towards black people, but America is finally starting to change their perspectives on African-Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it an official day for African-Americans to have their rights, but caucasians became aware of such freedom the blacks had and became frightened by them. As a result, white people, especially cops, took action by using weapons against blacks when the blacks were innocent in some cases. In Staples’s prose essay he wrote “Where fear and weapons meet--and they often do in urban America--there is always the possibility of death” meaning when an African-American man would come

Yet even as we hear about the dangers faced by interactions with police, our instinct is sometimes to distance ourselves from the victims (and this social justice issue), especially when the victims are Black. We wonder why they didn’t “just obey the officer” or we look for other information about the victim that justifies their death. When a policeman shoots a Black person, you might think it’s the victim’s fault because you see so many media images showing Black people as “thugs” and criminals. Those images take hold in people’s minds ours included. It becomes too

In less than a years time, 5,986 reports of misconduct from police officers have been filed, and out of those cases, 382 have resulted in fatality. Many people could use this statistic along with several other facts to point out the injustices that lie deep within the law enforcement system of the U.S. A very popular director by the name of Quentin Tarantino would agree in this case, based on a speech he gave in rebuttal to a few controversial statements he made in a previous protest against police brutality. In this particular piece, Tarantino addresses many significant events through the use of rhetorical definitions and parallel structure and uses a very harsh tone in order to convince the community that there is indeed racial bias behind most of this un-necessary police brutality.

The main subject of the poem is a piano player and singer, who is living his last night. The message is that society works people to their deaths, especially African American workers. There is a phrase in the poem that goes, “I got the Weary Blues, And I can’t be satisfied.”. This is a metaphor for how the people have been worked to death and how everybody continues to be worked until they give up and die. The poem describes that the singer who has the “Weary Blues” and this can be interpreted as a symbol for the entire populace at the time. Hughes uses the phrase of ebony hands on ivory keys, which can mean that black people work for the white people. The final lines read, “He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.”, and that can be interpreted that there’s no difference between the singer being dead, or worked to

He follows a list of various acts of violence committed on black people throughout history; a reference to how police departments across America have been given the right to destroy black bodies and that no know one is responsible of this acts. As he lists more incidents of violence faced by black people, the author refers to the “Dream” in American society, an ideal of safety and prosperity that he struggles to continue believing in even though he knows that for black people like him and his son, the Dream is simply not possible. He describes his sadness at the conclusion of the previously mentioned interview, a sadness resulting from the interviewer asking him about the possibility of hope for black people in America, and his frustration at hearing his son crying after he learned that a recent act of racist violence will not result in criminal charges against the committer. The author explains his choice to not comfort his son by saying that he decided it was more important for his son to face, and learn the truth about being black in America.

An African American policeman recently let the world know his standings on the racism within the police system, he starts off by saying, " As a kid, I got used to being stopped by the police. I grew up in an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis. It was the kind of place where officers routinely roughed up my friends and family for no good reason

On August 9, 2014 the United States shivered in behalf of the unjust treatment that has claimed to be obsolete for the past sixty years. Mike Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old man with African American descent, and his friend had just stolen minor items from a nearby convenience store when they were confronted by Officer Darren Wilson for unrelated reasons to the robbery. Within a strange series of events, Brown’s friend managed to flee while Mike suffered the consequences of racial discrimination from a white officer. The dispute between the officer and the teen resulted with a lethal twelve shots being fired at Mike, despite the fact he was unarmed, made no further enhancement toward Wilson, and his hands were raised in surrender. Mike Brown’s heart-wrenching story is just one of the many that occur daily. Racial discrimination is felt among many and it has yet to subside. Prejudices and discrimination occur all over the world and affect all age groups. Racial discrimination has shown to be the most predominant genre of discrimination in the world and within the population of southern California, judgement of appearance is the most prevalent.

In our project, we focused on the mistreatment African American individuals receive against police officers. In our script, we tell the story of a couple and a passenger who experiences a little trouble with the police after a camping trip in the Appalachian Mountains. Many African Americans are a constant replica of discrimination and constant harassment from police officers.

Racial profiling and discrimination is an underlining theme in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric. The author uses everyday encounters to expose the harsh reality African American people live. Rankine’s perspective on racism is applicable to years dating from 1860 and to present day occurrences. Discrimination against African Americans is a continuing problem. Although slavery does not exist today, African Americans continually grieve the agony their ancestors faced throughout the Civil War up to World War II. African Americans overcame slavery and oppression, but are still harassed with racial profiling tactics. Claudia Rankine experiences the racism she writes about. If she did not experience the encounters first hand, she took the stories from friends who had experienced it. The narrators thought provoking arguments and encounters informs the reader about modern day biases and discrimination. “For many African Americas, simply having dark skin seems to be grounds for being pulled over on the highway and searched for suspicion. Ted Koppel and Michael McQueen on an ABC News Special investigate how police forces call it “profiling.” Profiling was built on years of successful drug interdiction through traffic stops and searches, however angry and humiliated victims call it “racial profiling” and want it to be stopped” (“Racial Profiling and Law Enforcement: America in Black and White”). Although

Obviously, the sheriff hated the narrator enough to kill the deputy and use that against to bring him under control. The sheriff use that as an excuse to chase the narrator. The narrator admitted to committing this unlawful and horrendous act. He was saying although I’m confessing this please don’t let one horrible mistake of mine lead you into believing something else. “…Sheriff Brown hated me for what I don’t know…” (Bob Marley and the wailers verse 3) here the narrator elaborated more how the sheriff keep mistreating him until one he fought back. Soon in another verse he can be heard saying it was a self-defense. Although it’s very hard to justify the killing he still pushes his prior idea of self-defense. Evidently it was hard for the narrator to stay long series period of unpleasant dilemma; he finally broke down and dealt with it the only way he knew how. Defending oneself against dishonest and disloyal can be a very challenging thing. The motive behind this can’t be seen lightly. Him being raised as poor black kid in a terrible town didn’t help his condition. Blame the people who oversaw the administration at that time for the narrator’s crime. when there is an evil act in the society one tend to blame the few individuals that retaliate the system. The narrator seems to see no point in killing a deputy a man with a lesser power than the sheriff when the

Poets for Ferguson is a website dedicated to raising awareness about the death of Michael Brown, an African American. He was an 18 year old, unarmed robber who was shot to death by a white police officer. Brown’s death outraged the Ferguson community and led to serious civil disorder in the following months. Poems on this website such as, “Depends on the Forest” written by Charise Sowells, closely relate to the shooting of Brown and refer to topics surrounding the event, such as race and discrimination. Throughout her poem, Stowell uses a metaphor of a tree to communicate three ideas: discrimination and racism are still occurring, explaining and justifying the Ferguson riots, and demonstrating that the logic of racism is senseless.