Persuasive Essay

“Most officers involved in these killings are hardly indicted, much less convicted, for excessive use of force. The criminal justice system’s high volume of contact with people of colour”. (Burton, 2015). This is a major cause of African-Americans’ unequal proportion of deadly police encounters, as well as of larger perceptions of prejudice in the black communities. “Black lives matter” has become the accumulating social movement to bring light to the inequality and unjustifiable act and the legal system is failing to up hold the citizens right and the basic

“From that point on,” after witnessing the body—and Mamie’s courage—“Mississippi began to move” (Bush 3). On July 2nd 1964, John F. Kennedy signed the civil rights act into law. Now, This was meant to be a turning point in history and the act of gunning down a black youth became a staple case of racism considering it was the case that led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act. However, within the emergence of this new racism, “African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged in 2015 by investigation into the use of deadly force by police” (Swaine 1) even though African American males only make up 2% of the population. From Emmett Till’s gunning down in 1955 to Walter Scott’s in 2015, we are witnessing history repeat itself when America can clearly see, “of course the evidence is not there, but we are still claiming skin color was not a factor” (Crump 2). The city of North Charleston, S.C., was all too willing to accept the officer’s version of events, even though the physical evidence clearly showed that the officer had landed four out of eight bullets in Scott’s

Ironically, “Cops killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015, 50 percent of the victims of fatal police shootings were white, while 26 percent were black. The majority of these victims had a gun or, were armed or threatening the officer with potentially lethal force.” “Alternatively, some believe that these statistics are

Many say that black people hold 26% of the shootings but are only 10% of the total population. This is invalid as many will know that in the inner cities and poor neighborhoods like the streets of chicago many are involved in violent crimes, resulting in a heart-breaking death. Many will put in that statistic and rely on it with no further information. The millions that see this are influenced, and many people mostly youth begin to believe the false stereotype amongst white cops in particular. “ The second piece of evidence is another statistic showing rates of Police on Black Violence to Black on Police. “The article by the wall street journal says “Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police” As many say cops kill black males unproportionally the FBI says otherwise. The third piece of evidence is also from the Wall Street Journal.“Officers’ use of lethal force following an arrest for a violent felony is more than twice the rate for white as for black arrestees, according to one study” If their was an existing bias it would be in favor of blacks over whites. In many cases in poor neighborhoods where a vast majority of the inhabitants are blacks or hispanic, the crime is higher, and there still continues to be less violence against

The specific audience of my argumentation is the racially ignorant white populations that refuse to acknowledge the idea that police brutality towards the African-American race is evident amongst our society. The racially ignorant white population assumes that police brutality is used as a defense mechanism rather than an appeal to racism towards African-Americans. This hostile audience becomes uncomfortable when asked to discuss police brutality towards the minorities and would rather disregard or ignore the conversation. Thus, they may not initially agree with my arguments because it might be difficult for them to comprehend the idea that African-Americans are being subjected to racial cruelty. My goal is to persuade the ignorant white populations about police brutality amongst African-Americans so they become more aware and can help support the abolishment of the cruelty minorities are faced with.

In 2015, police brutality peaked to an all time high, with over 100 of the 776 people killed blacks. Yet only 10 out of the 102 killing of unarmed blacks resolved in the conviction of the officers . For example, the death of Freddy Gray was unnecessary and occurred because a white

Police brutality against African Americans has become a hot topic in the media. Police brutality is when excessive force is used when it is unnecessary. During the civil rights movement, African American men and women fought for and gained their rights. They may have believed that their suffering had ended there but there is still a long way to go. In Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, he writes about how African Americans are being treated by police and the court system. He describes it as “ grossly unjust treatment” (paragraph 6). Today it is three times more likely for a black person to be killed than a white person. One out of three of the black people killed by police were armed and suspected to have committed an actual crime

African American groups, such as Black Lives Matter, have created a false narrative that African Americans in our society are victimized by law enforcement. The media has presented police officers to be murderers, and have created trends and discussions that encourage Americans to turn their backs on the ones that protect them. Police Brutality has become an ongoing conversation as black citizens experience law enforcement related deaths. Although society is blaming the killings of African Americans on white cops specifically, they fail to realize that black and hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at African Americans than white officers. This is according to a Department of Justice report in 2015 about the Philadelphia

It is said that America is free, all people have equal rights and are treated the same, but when it comes to the lives of black people the same rules should but do not apply. Although African Americans only make up 2% of the U.S. population, they are killed at twice the rate of whites, hispanics and Native Americans, and were 9 times more likely to be killed by police officers in 2015 (Swaine, Laughland, Lartey, McCarthy). Being born black in america means that not only are you more likely to be pulled over by police and hassled, but you are almost 10 times for likely to be shot and murdered by a police officer. ‘Yes, all lives matter, but all lives, white, are not being shot six times the rate of blacks and that’s what we need to be aware of’ (Schwartz).

According to a Washington Post database of lethal police shootings 24 unarmed black men have been shot and killed by police so far this year. This means one a black man dies every nine days. Three unarmed black men were shot and killed in the month of April alone. All three shootings were either caught on tape or reported on local TV. The 24 unarmed black men that were killed compose a startling small amount of the 585 people shot and killed by police. According to The Post database. Most of those killed were white or Hispanic, and a good number of all races were armed. However, according to Wesley, black men accounted for 40 percent of the 60 unarmed deaths, even though they make up just 6 percent of the U.S. population.

Over the past few years police brutality and the use of deadly force on their part has risen very rapidly. It has always been around but the death of Michael Brown back in August of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri was one of the very first cases that started the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Here in the U.S. the use of deadly force by a sworn police officer is only lawful when the officer has reason to believe that the subject he/she is pursuing poses a threat of serious bodily injury or death to themselves or others. The New York times posted an analysis of F.B.I. data from 2010-2012 concluded that the police killed African American men ages 15 to 19 at a rate 21 times greater than the statistic for white men the same age. The department of Justice Numbers indicates that a black man or woman is about four times more likely to die in custody or while being arrested than a white person.

Remember Eric Garner? After his death at the hands of police, two people have been charged in his death, one Ramsey Orta, an African American, was the man who simply filmed it. Another was the female African American supervising police officer. 4 Neither of the two people charged with Eric Garner’s death were directly involved which is needless to say, a very strong argument point. Police violence against African Americans is not just a myth put out by bored liberals looking for a reason to lash out at their government, but is something happening across the

Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Health, United States, 2002. Flegal et. al. JAMA. 2002;288:1723-7. NIH, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, 1998.

“Your assignment is to write a persuasive essay and present it to the class in a week. You will be graded based on how convincing it is. Today we will be choosing topics,” announced Mr. Bowerbank, my 7th grade English teacher and ruler of classroom 110. My class simultaneously groaned at the prospect of work. I simply lifted my head with intrigue as it was already May and about time we had our first essay. He then proceeded to give examples of topics we could choose and gave us some time to think before we had to tell him our topic. My classmates were already rushing to tell the teacher their idea lest someone else steal it. That meant the usual abortion, death penalty, or drug use topics were out. I really couldn't think of anything and the teacher was slowly making his way through the remaining students like an executioner beheading criminals in a line. I have always thought that he would make a marvelous supervillain if he had a curly mustache, a tophat, and a cape. Eventually my name was called. I slowly dragged myself over to his desk. Even sitting down, he still seemed to tower over me. “What is your topic Cindy?” As usual in such desperate times, my mind turned to food. “Waffles are better than pancakes.” I figured that a waffle was just a differently shaped pancake with a nicer texture. “Hmm. Excellent topic. I look forward to your essay!” I survived to live yet another day.

Having escaped rule from a tyrannical British government, the United States was founded on ideals of freedom and equality for all people. These fantasies of universal egalitarianism turned out to be merely that: fantasies. American history is full of stories of the oppressed struggling to get the rights they deserve and of the controversy over these issues that consequently ensues. “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” by Frederick Douglass and “We Shall Overcome” by Lyndon B. Johnson are two speeches made confronting two of these issues. Douglass’s speech, delivered in 1852, condemns the institution of slavery and maintains that slaves are men and are therefore entitled to freedom. Johnson’s speech, on the other hand, was written in 1965 and discussed the civil rights movement. In it, he implored local governments to allow all American citizens, regardless of race, to vote. Despite the significant gap in time between these two addresses, both speakers use similar persuasive techniques, including ethos, pathos, and parallelism, to convince their audience that change needs to be implemented in America.