Essay On African Americans Treated Unfairly

In the year 2014, 1108 people were killed in cases of police brutality. Of those 1108, 23.5% (265) of the victims were African Americans. In a poll conducted in 2009, 54.4% of African Americans said that they or people they knew experienced violence at the hands of police. Only 44.2% of the African Americans taking the poll

According to the CNN article titled “Poll: 1 in 5 blacks report 'unfair' dealings with police in the last month,” African-Americans were experiencing unfair police treatment due to their racial standards in their community. “Terms such as ‘driving while black’ and ‘walking while black’ have been coined, with studies showing that blacks are pulled over, questioned or arrested by police at a disproportionately higher rate than white Americans” (Poll: 1 in 5 blacks report 'unfair' dealings with police in the last month n. p.). Presumably, since African-Americans are people of color they are often treated unfairly in their communities, especially by white policemen because they can be racist towards them. Policemen will often end up focusing on their racial standards, and what the color of their skin is instead of what they act like as an individual, and how they treat others in their community. Moreover, in the film, Prom Night in Mississippi, African-American high school students were treated unfairly by white high school students, and also by other white people in their community. They were doing this because they too were only focusing on the fact that they are African-Americans, and how they did not see them as equal individuals within their community. For example, when the high school had two separate proms, one only for the white high school students, and

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)

Numbers suggest that, for instance, while Blacks compose six percent of population in St. Clayton city, they represent 57% of overall police arrests. Similarly, the probability of Black arrest in Berkeley (CA) and Madison (Wis) cities is nine times higher than other racial groups compared to their corresponding population. In addition to this, Bureau of Justice statistics report that at the national level, Blacks are two times more likely to be arrested compared to Whites. Concurring with media reports and national statistics institutes’ estimates, empirical studies also report high proportion of minority arrests compared to their representation in the population (Golub, Johnson, & Dunlap, 2007).

In order to understand the nature of the statistical disparity, the first aspect that must be examined is necessarily the statistics themselves. Recent data (1998) shows that more than two out of every three arrested persons are white (67.6%) and that African Americans account for only 30% of all arrests. More striking is the data adjusted per capita: African Americans are two and a half times as likely to be arrested as whites, and are even more over-represented in violent crimes, for which they are over three times as likely to be arrested. African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39).

Many of the problems and conflicts between the community and the police are based on situations involving police misconduct and race. Other issues occur because of an experience one has had with the police because he or she is minority. Early resentments from White officers cause a different outcome when handling a police situation that involves a different race as oppose to his or her own. This begins to shape the perception of the residents that witness these actions. It has been shown that an officer’s attitude and behaviors when dealing with a minority is harsher and unfair. Several situations like the Rodney King story and police brutality where a minority was the victim is viewed by the public and discriminatory behavior solely caused by a person’s race or ethnicity. This creates distrusts and suspicion with regard to the way a police department handles these issues. The public is disappointed and reluctant to construct a relationship with his or her fellow officer.

To prove his case, the author cites various statistics and incidents that demonstrate that these incidents are not accidents but manifestations of a larger problem. Granderson quotes CNN poll statistics that state that almost half of the white respondent in the poll affirmatively stated that none or almost none of the police in their neighborhoods are not prejudiced against African Americans. Contrastingly, only thirty-five percent of non-whites are of this opinion. Additionally, Granderson relates his own experiences with racial profiling (Granderson,

This article basically gets into similar things my first article talked about it gives data what each race thought about the Rodney King beating, African Americans in Detroit, which was 94 percent of them said the police officers should be convicted, then the white percentage was 64 percentage which triple the black community. This shows you how much racial lines when it comes to crimes and what each group of people think about the police, this brings a perspective that the police treat African Americans harsher than white which is more of the dominate society. This article also ran a

"Relations between the police and minority groups are a continuing problem in many multiracial societies. Surveys consistently document racial differences in perceptions of the police, with minorities more likely than whites to harbor negative views." (Weitzer and Tuch, Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct, 2004)

Throughout the article, there are twelve different graphs, pie charts, and bar graphs to present statistics from surveys completed by both white and black men and women. The surveys encompass issues such as treatment in various situations, opinions about the government’s role in racial relations, racial gaps, success rate based on race, and thought concerning the Black Lives Matter movement. According to one survey on the topic of treatment between blacks and whites in the past twelve months because of race or ethnicity, 47% of blacks have had people act as if they were suspicious of them compared to only 10% of whites; 45% have had people act as if they were not smart versus 9%; 21% have been treated unfairly in hiring, pay, or promotion compared to 4%; and 18% have been unfairly stopped by police while only 3% of whites have experienced this issue (Pew Research Center, 2016, p.

Racial profiling has been a hot topic recently and has influenced citizen’s perceptions of police. Minorities that been stopped due to racial profiling are more willing to voice their dissatisfaction with the police. Minorities who have not been racially profiled but hear stories about racial profiling may be more skeptical of future experiences with police. Research has found that minorities tend to rate officer legitimacy in a more objective manor when stopped by a minority officer (Tyler, 2005). Minorities that are stopped by White officers tend to be more skeptical of the officer behavior (Tyler, 2005). African Americans are the most skeptical of police behavior and especially believe

Christopher Huggins looked into citizen reports of police behavior during traffic stops in an effort to understand how officer and citizen race can influence reports of impropriety. Through analyzing 6,301 citizen reports of traffic encounters with police researchers discovered that African Americans are less likely than whites to report proper police behavior when they encounter officers of any race (Huggins, 2012).

My friend did not expect the police to handcuff him outside of his house in front of his neighbors. He did nothing wrong--an hour earlier he had called 911 to report that someone had broken into his shed and stolen a lawn mower. Yet when the police finally showed up to investigate, they immediately suspected the perpetrator was him. This grievous act was made very obviously due to the fact that my friend is an African American male. The scene of people of color being subjected to bias from law enforcement is unfortunately very common. There are many books and movies that expose this prejudice, including the book Just Mercy. Brian Stevenson, the author, asserts in his book Just Mercy that the race of an individual has the most impact on how he/she is treated within the criminal justice system.

Many people in the minority community believe that white police officers are far more responsible for abusive conduct toward minorities than any other group(2). The authors of Beyond the Rodney King Story conclude that “ Police abuse in America largely consists of white officers abusing minority citizens. Rickie Clark of the National