Analysis Of Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric

Another quote from the book that proves that racism and prejudice “they said that that he had two good hands and he had made it, and he was moving fast.and they but seventeen bullet holes in him”pg 235 the quote shows that even police will let the emotions guiding their actions and not their

He also starts with how he read about cases of police brutality that mostly involved “Black and Brown suspects.” This informative piece’s purpose is to show how police officers continue to use excessive force without consequences. With the recent number of police shootings involving black Americans, Scott sees police as bullies that do whatever necessary to get their way, so he uses the text to show them in that light. The few statistics that Scott uses are from credible sources, but the rest of the writing is purely anecdotal. He relies almost entirely on emotional appeals. “In many of the above cases, such as the Chamberlain case, police were cleared of any wrongdoing or faced relatively light or unspecified punishments, a situation that I imagine leaves police feeling comfortable in deploying any act of violence in their toolbox, no matter how reckless, if it leaves them standing when all the smoke from the gunfire has cleared. However, for much of the populace, that knot in their chests when a squad car sidles up next to them in traffic is the twinge of sheer terror.” Scott does not do much to set up how credible he is in the text. Without using facts and evidence or speaking from personal experience, Scott’s writing lacks ethos. However, Scott’s writing does do a good job in showing officers in a completely different light than how Bolgiano portrays them.

Furthermore, this scene also depicts racial profiling in America. According to Silva “blacks and dark-skinned Latinos are the targets of racial profiling by the police,” (2). In many cases, blacks are automatically assumed criminals and “always up to no good.”

The way in which a police officer reacts to a situation relies on the characteristics of the suspect and location, and the personal beliefs of the police officer. The characteristics of a suspect include the individual’s race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, and behavior. These aspects play a single role in a law enforcement officer’s behavior under a nerve-wracking situation. People will argue that an officer judging by a suspect’s characteristics is sexist, racist, etc., but, truth is, everyone judges by

While Kathryn Engel’s humiliation was only witnessed by her oppressors, another man was less fortunate. Michael Scipio, a mentally impaired african american man, was forced to sing and dance while videotaped by a local police officer, “A middle aged black man signs and makes strange noises, apparently at the direction of a police officer…. “Go ahead, do your song,” the person behind the camera says on video”(Murphy 3). Scipio reports that the officer took advantage of his mental illness by ordering him to sing and dance and “made him feel like a fool”( Murphy 1) before sending the video to several family members, friends and coworkers. The same police officer posted another photo, this one included a racist caption and featured a black man riding in the back of a truck. Thankfully, all officers involved in this awful event were fired and Michael Scipio was issued a formal apology. Police officers should not be allowed to humiliate and dehumanise others just because their victims are powerless.

I commence with this anecdote for several reasons one of which is to humbly acknowledge my unique, and privileged position as a Black female scholar in the midst of a war waged against Black bodies. Another reason is to recognize police brutality as a national endemic that plagues Black communities, unveiling remnants of anti-Black racism that legitimately suppresses the lives of Blacks in America . The non-indictments in each case concerning the sanctioned murder of Black youths evoke a

Chapter 4 in The Color of Justice: Race, ethnicity, and crime in America, was about the relations between society and law enforcement officers. This has been a major topic, especially in the United States for a long time. The unfortunate statistic that minorities are more likely to encounter being killed, arrested, and victimized by excessive physical force; has been a real issue even in today’s society. However, police departments are trying to combat the way police officers interact with the community; especially those of color. Although steps have been takes there are still some instances where police aggression happens. With all of the issues that arise between certain minority populated community’s police it is evident that conflict

With so many news stories and incidents surrounding the topic of race and the police these days, it is not surprising for people to come to the conclusion that racism may exist within the criminal justice system. We will be taking a deeper look into the problem to find out what other possible determinants may play a role in deciding how an officer makes an arrest or stop and continue to analyze what is happening in those contexts. The issues surrounding the topic of race is like the two faces of the same coin as there are usually two sides that we have to consider: reality and media portrayals. The reality side of situations is always there at the time, but it is so subtly hidden from society that nobody understands it unless they witness it firsthand and with the media spreading filtered information, it becomes even harder for us to identify the key issue; this is especially the case when dealing with the police and racial profiling. If you turn on the news and flip to a channel where it is reporting on the police and their arrests, you will most likely see more arrests pertaining to minorities than other ethnicities. In the news, we can often see a misrepresentation of ethnic minorities, usually African-Americans, being arrested when compared to others and this has caused problems around societies countless times. For this essay topic, I will be discussing the different issues surrounding race within the parameters of criminal justice and inequality; furthermore I will be

“ Police brutality refers to force used by law enforcement officers that is excessive and/or unnecessary in dealing with civilians. Excessive use of force means more than is needed in a given situation. It may include physical injury…” ( "Police Brutality and Race."). In the book. through pages 19-23, describes an incident that happened between a police officer and a young black male. Rashad was wrongfully accused of shoplifting and assulting a white woman. The white lady stubbles over rashad which causes him to drop his bag of chips next to his bag, this caused the owner of the shop to think that rashad was shoplifting. So, the local police officer took action and handcuffed him. The police officer was hurting Rashad and he moved, Guzzo (the police officer) believes that rashad was resisting and throw him on the ground which results in a broken nose and cracked ribs. The authors purpose is to show the readers about a fictional situation that often occurs in real life. This can cause an effect on readers by showing them how racist some police officers can be. Along with that how stereotypes can often ruin and harm many lives. Many readers can relate to seeing something, that they wished they didn’t, and not knowing what to do after. “.... but i spent most of the night still stuck on the sidewalk outside Jerry’s, me heart pumping fiercely in my throat, and when someone

1.) This man who was suspected of a burglary, was a victim of institutionalized oppression from the police officers questioning him. Although the officer confirmed that the call was for a different neighborhood, this man was automatically assumed to be the burglar because he was black, and that in itself was deemed suspicious by the police due to the stereotype of black crime. These officers, who were also black, have internalized oppression about black criminals, which means that they harbor the oppressive thoughts about their own minority group. This leads to the fact that this man was also facing horizontal hostility. Despite the fact that the officers were the same race as the ‘suspect’ they still jumped to conclusions about his actions instead of approaching this man without judgment.

A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.

Primarily, this paper is structured as a cause and effect essay as he narrates his personal experience, reinforcing his message and making the audience realize his viewpoints. In his article, Staples takes out all of his frustrations of being treated as a criminal throughout the passage. Firstly, Staples express the fear a white woman faced when she felt a young,broad six feet two inches black man with a beard and billowing hair was menacingly close. He continues by stating more incidents he experienced as a teenager, as a journalist and so on where people (mostly women) panicked imagining him as a mugger or a rapist. Furthermore, the author

Police brutality against African Americans is nothing new in today’s society. Twenty five years after the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and countless other unarmed African American men and women have become victims of police officers. Riots and protests in places like Ferguson, Baltimore and Cleveland have garnered the issue and unprecedented amount of attention, especially in the media. It has also caused an outcry among the American people for both sides involved. Notably, it has brought about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s penning of Between the World and Me. In his short novel addressed as a letter to his son, he discusses the fear that all African Americans Coates himself saw growing up in Baltimore. He tells his son, and therefore the reader, stories of his own childhood and young adulthood and of the problems and issues he sees within America. These problems lie within the justice system, the education system, and within our society as a whole.

Many people in the United States have either experienced or witnessed some form of discrimination in their lifetimes, and one person, in particular, was Brent Staples, an African-American man who lived in New York during the mid-1970’s, which was not too long after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Racial tensions in the United States were still considerably high back then, and this led to racism and discrimination towards others based on their social statuses such as race, class, and gender, and Staples himself has dealt with this issue numerous times in the past, which inspired him to write and to share his own thoughts and experiences about this controversial topic. He believed that even though black men were statistically more likely to get convicted of crimes than any other racial or minority group, it didn’t mean that all black men were violent criminals. He chose to format his writing into a personal essay for his story to have a more personal tone to it that anyone who reads it can easily relate to. The purpose of this text was to raise public awareness of the unfair discrimination in a society that Staples, along with many others, had encountered time and time again. It was written for both the general public and anyone who has also experienced discrimination to use as motivation to try to better themselves and make people realize that not all of them fit the stereotypes that society has set towards certain minority groups. In his text, Just Walk on By, Brent

It is the police’s job in deciding whom to stop, search, and arrest, unless someone has proof of actual racial bias. Racial bias also exists in sentencing such as death penalties. Death penalties are more common for African Americans than whites who are convicted of the same crime. In the courtroom, it is so hard to achieve racial justice. There are attempts into stopping the discrimination, but it is just not something that goes away in a day. It is unconstitutional to discriminate based on race in the jury selection, but discrimination happens in the jury all the time. Prosecutors and attorneys are working on ways to select jurors who are qualified and fit to serve certain cases. In some cases, prosecutors can be unfair and discriminating as well. Alexander shows how racism permeates almost every aspect of the criminal justice system after initial arrest. There is no such thing as race neutral in todays society. Racism has been around since the 1400s, hasn’t really gone anywhere since. Although there has been a lot of change in racism over the years progressed. Alexander wants to get the point that there is crime everywhere but the people who are getting in trouble for these crimes are certain people of race. She wants to give her audience an idea of what problems really needs to be approached. Action can be taken to reduce the amount of racism in today’s society, but overall it doesn’t just go away over night. It takes a lot of time and commitment to reduce racism in today’s