Analyzing the Importance of Race in Brentwood, California

The violence that some officers exude to minorities should only be used in extreme, desperate situations not when a teen steals some cigars or is walking home with a hood on. Besides showing an interest in racial justice and issues of race helps to break down barriers, exposed as false perceived misunderstandings, and shed light on commonly held perceptions of a race-infused

Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.

There was a time when America was segregated; Caucasians and African Americans were forced to attend different restrooms, restaurants, and water fountains. However, the era of segregation has been terminated; now America embraces and appreciates the various cultures and ethnicities that create this melting pot several people call home. Likewise, it is this melting pot, or mosaic, of races that multitudes of individuals have identified themselves with. Thus, race and ethnicity does matter for it portrays vital and crucial roles in the contemporary American society. Furthermore, ethnicity and race brings communities together in unity, determines which traditions and ideals individuals may choose to value, and imposes an impediment for it categorizes humans unjustly.

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

There are numerous concerns based on the quantity and content of stop and searches which are often influenced by institutionalised racism (Home Office, 1997). Studies suggested that the police maintain a belief that black people are prone to be involved in violent crimes (Reiner, 1989). Therefore leading to black individuals routinely falling victim to police stereotypes and overgeneralisations (Bowling and Phillips, 2007). Police interviews have suggested that police perceive certain ethnicities to be involved with certain crimes, one interview suggested that if police are alerted of a robbery, 90% of the time they will assume it is involving a black individual (Quinton et al, 2000). Despite that there is evidence suggesting that racial disadvantages will cause an increase in young blacks to be involved with crime, suggesting that these suspicions are justified (Waddington et al, 2007). Furthermore, there is little research suggesting that police enforce their prejudices when working on the streets, thus suggesting that racial views are a result of police canteen sub-culture (Waddington, 1999).

Law enforcement and minorities have long been the focus of the criminal justice injustice within the United States. African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans are a number of communities in the United States along with Caucasian or non-minorities as a whole, which make up a large portion of the United States. Racial discrimination has been a large factor the criminal justice system has been plagued with for many years. In the book Just Mercy, authored by Bryan Stevenson, Stevenson details his life’s work to help those who were wrongfully convicted and biased towards in sentencing. A big part of the book is related to racial discrimination among officers. Analytically I will be looking at the question of whether the relations between the police and minority and non-minority communities differ. I will look at number of factors related to traffic enforcement practices, use of force and arrest of minorities and non-minorities in determining if there is any differences among police community relations.

Following, numbers of shootings involving law enforcement and black men, race became a pertinent topic among American people. It seems that two groups have revealed themselves through these discussions, those who believe race is still a problem in America, and those who believe America is a post-racial society. History is one of the clearest indicators showing that race may still be relevant in modern communities. A plethora of connections can be drawn between discrepancies in poverty, incarceration, and poor education between whites and blacks when you look at events in our nation’s history such as slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, and more. With that being said, one of the more significant examples of institutional racism in America is one that is rarely

Another factor in conflicts with this nation’s police force is the differences in races between American neighborhoods and their police force. In order to reduce the presence of racism in law enforcement, the race and ethnicities of the police force must be representative of the population they are responsible

Blalock’s threat curve (4) is used to visually show the differences between police expenditures and the percent of blacks living in the cities. The threat curve is a graph to find the majority group’s inclination to protect the certain areas that they live in (Jackson, 4, 1989). The threat curve is used to show the correlation between the white population’s capability to exercise police expenditures based on the visibility of minority groups in a particular area. The idea that with the increasing presence of minority groups in a mainly white area that the police expenditures in that area will also increase. Once the minority group becomes the majority, more than 50%, then the police expenditures will start to decrease. The idea is based on the social context of a given city and the social control of the majority group will disturb the curve.

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.

In American society, race and racial issues are viewed in a black and white manner. The media portrays matters of race in the simplest terms without taking intersectionality into account. Social class, economic factors, and historical factors impact how racial issues are regarded and handled in specific geographic locations. John Hartigan demonstrates this in his book, Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness of Detroit, which describes the dynamics of three local communities: Briggs, Cork Town, and Warrendale. Hartigan examines how white identity varies in these three neighborhoods due to other social factors. Comparing how these local communities respond to race versus the media’s response shows how categorizing people into monolithic groups based only on race is a tactic that ignores the real issues and delays finding solutions.

California becomes a multicultural area even before it becomes a state. It started with the Native Americans, Native Californians and Californios; then the Gold Rush brought a flood of new people such as Chinese, African American slaves, Europeans, etc, who wanted to make it rich. However, despite the fact that California increased in its diversity so much and so fast during its history, social and economic acceptance of different kinds of people was very low. When trying to gain statehood, one condition of the California Constitution was that foreigners have the same rights as Californios; however, shortly after, the Foreign miner’s tax was introduced, costing $20/month to mine in

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

Race is a social construct used to categorize people who share biological traits that a society thinks are important. It is commonly used to organize people and distribute power within society. As Cornel West implies, “it is an important factor in determining the life chances of certain groups of people in the United States” (West, 358). Race plays a huge role in how people are perceived, and therefore the opportunities that are available to them. A person’s race influences a whole host of social outcomes, from their education, to their income and their experiences with the criminal justice system. Just like race, minorities are categorized and distinguished by physical or cultural difference, that a society sets apart and subordinates. Typically, minorities occupy a lower status in society and have less access to the levels of societal power. Non-Hispanic white Americans, which is the majority group in United States society, have higher incomes, live in better neighborhoods, and are more likely to have more prestigious jobs and better educations than racial and ethnic minorities. Because of these disparities, minorities often face prejudice, a rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people. Prejudice often takes the form of stereotypes, which are exaggerated and simplified descriptions that are applied to every person in a category. Negative stereotypes enforce racism, or beliefs, thoughts, and actions based on the idea that one race is innately superior to another race. These thoughts can lead to harmful actions, or discrimination, towards different groups of people. Some people believe that race is tied up in structures of power and that races with less societal power are inferior. For example, it’s not unknown that black men are seen as violent in today’s society. Because of this stereotype, African-American people are more likely to fall victim to police brutality. An analysis of the available FBI data by Vox's Dara Lind found that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates: “Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the US population”. In an effort to end this injustice, people of all races

According to a New York Amsterdam News article, Poverty, not race, tied to high crime in urban communities, “The violent crime rate in highly disadvantaged Black areas was 22 per 1,000 residents, not much different from the 20 per 1,000 rate in similar white communities” (Unknown 1997). While there is a slight influx of criminal activity form American majorities to American minorities, the question of why this is so must be asked. The New York Amsterdam News article helps to provide an explanation for the fluctuation. As far back as the 1980’s, researchers have repetitively return to idea and