Racial Discrimination

I was watching the news, when the footage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster came on. The news reporters were showing a black man walking in flooded waters near a market with a bag full of food and labeled him a “thief”. Social media in the United States has portrayed people of different racial backgrounds differently and unequally in recent years. In the essays “Theories and Constructs of Race” and “Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?” the authors discuss in both essays about issues with racial equality in our world today. Authors Linda Holtzman and Leon Sharpe discuss in the first essay racial schemes are created through prejudices and the telling and retelling of stories. While, authors Cheryl I. Harris and Devon W. Carbado discuss in their essay about the issue of “colorblindness” in social media. Holtzman is a professor of communications and journalism at Webster University, while Sharpe is a professor at Webster as well. Similarly, Harris and Carbado are professors at UCLA’s School of Law and have addressed widely on race, gender, civil rights and constitutional issues. Both essays do a good job at explaining their ideas and supporting them with evidence of racial discrimination in our world today. The authors from both essays organize their ideas and summarize them, which helps understand the main idea of racism, discrimination and racial inequalities in today’s society.

Without a doubt, black men in the United States continue to be excessively “incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts (Kerby 2).” Portrayals in the media have depicted black men as thugs and common criminals; these negative stereotypes demoralize men of color and allow society to believe and internalize this destructive thinking. The racial disparities that exist in the criminal justice system are an indirect consequence of the portrayals of African American men that circulate in society. Because of racial disparities that occur in the United States it consequently threatens communities of color by “disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more (Kerby 2).”

African American males are overrepresented in the criminal justice and many times are subject to harsher sentences than their Caucasian counterparts. African American males also experience racial profiling and have more negative interactions than any other population in the United States. Ibie, Obie, and Obiyan states, “African Americans have continued to be the repository for American crime and to be treated as amalgamation of presumed group trait rather than as individuals”. This topic is important because African American adolescents are less likely to be referred to rehabilitation or diversion programs and more likely to be sent to juvenile and/or prison. History has not been kind to African Americans and the injustices experienced by African Americans in the criminal justice system is extremely high. According to Weatherspoon, “The Supreme Court condoned and perpetuated many of the present day stereotypical biases concerning African Americans in the landmark decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford”. Over that past few years, with the advent of social media, the world is becoming more aware of the injustices and brutality suffered by African American males in the justice system. Many view this as a new phenomenon, but others know this abuse has always occurred, it is just now there are cameras taping the violence. Many people are waking up to what is occurring, but there are many others who are denial and who refuse to acknowledge the oppression and racism

There are large racial disparities in incarceration and related detainments for African Americans. They are more likely to be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections than any other racial or ethnic group (H.West, Sabol, & Greenman, 2010). Institutional racism is believed to be the reason why African Americans, especially males, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. On balance, the public believes that discrimination against black people is based on the prejudice of the individual person, correlates to the discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions (Pew’s Research Center, 2017). This belief is actually supported through several experimental studies that provide evidence that African Americans are to be seen as more criminal and threatening than others thus more likely to be arrested or even shot (Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). Racism within the criminal justice system very much exists and is still relevant.

The government's first action to battle racial discrimination was the enforcement act of 1870, this act banned racial discrimination in voter registration. It also established consequences for those who interfered with one's right to vote. The government's second attempt to end discrimination was the enforcement act of 1871 which allowed federal oversight at elections if any citizen felt it was necessary. This act came with harsher punishments. The third and final attempt to end discrimination was the Ku Klux Klan act. This made any state official accountable in federal courts for stripping anybody of their civil right or protection of the law.  The KKK act also made several of their ploys federal offenses. This resulted on several hundred

Ultimately, the narrative of systematic oppression defines black history in America, yet the systematic oppression from the past caused cultural impediments that combined with systematic oppression in today’s society affect the black community presently. Constantly, the media portrays black people through mostly negative lenses as they’re depicted as having no class, being too aggressive, or through the most typical and praised roles of being slaves or nannies to their employer’s children. Similarly, the wealth gap between black people and other races still exists as a remnant of the injustices black people faced in the past. Furthermore, police brutality continues to occur with little consequences to the officers who attack black people for

In 2010, the American Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that the African Americans had the rate of imprisonment that was almost seven times greater compared to the white men’s incarceration rate. In addition, the

The recent rioting in Ferguson, Missouri has really put things in a different perspective regarding the treatment of African Americans. The protesting has called attention to the ghastly reality that African Americans still face an ongoing struggle and receive inferior treatment. Violent events occurring years after the 1960 's Civil Rights Movement—from the beating of Rodney King to the homicide of Trayvon Martin and the countless crimes in between—all reveal evidence of how African Americans are victims of injustices. While substantial progress has occurred in obtaining equality for African Americans during the last five decades, African Americans still battle discrimination on a daily basis in which they fall victim to degrading

Within the US justice system, there is a substantial disparity between the aggregate number of African American men living within the society, and living inside prison walls. African Americans men are frequently confronted with difficult environmental, financial and sociological disparities growing up, and also have the absence of opportunity weighing them down as well. Many of these factors have lead to outrageous numbers of African American males being incarcerated. Furthermore, the prejudicial behaviors by the judicial community can also be included as a factor in these incarceration statistics. Digging deeper, it is clear that crime and punishment are multidimensional issues that stem from racial prejudice that originate from racial partiality legitimized by age-old observations and convictions about African Americans. The United States has an affective double justice system that has kept up the monetary and social chain of command in America, in light of the oppression of blacks, inside the United States. Public policy, criminal justice, society and the media, and criminal conduct have every single assumed part in making and keeping this stigma alive. According to National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, African Americans contain about 1 million of the 2.3 million imprisoned populace. (NAACP, Criminal Justice Fact Sheet) Furthermore, the history of prejudice, which is additionally connected to the historical backdrop of view of race and crime, has

Today, African Americans and other minorities are over-represented in the criminal justice system, but under-represented politically in the United States of America. Since well before its inception in 1776, the United States of America has been a nation characterized by white supremacy. In fact, modern day America may not exist if not for the taking of land from the Indigenous Peoples on this very premise. Today, many Americans believe they live in a post-racial nation, citing the abolition of slavery in the 1860s. While racism has certainly been reduced in modern America, it is still ever-present in society, and more alarmingly, the criminal justice system.

A 2005 study by the Justice Department found that while Hispanic, black and white drivers were stopped by the police about as often, Hispanic drivers or their vehicles were searched 11.4 percent of the time and blacks 10.2 percent of the time, compared with 3.5 percent for white drivers (GLATER, 2007). There is an obvious connection between racial dynamics and the criminal justice system. Times have changed but many years ago courtrooms were comprised of all white lawyers, but race remains a problem in determining the outcome of any criminal case (Margaret, 2000). Racial discrimination does not happen in the way it happened many years ago down south. During this time white and black criminal cases were handled differently by law and the court system. We have come a long way to make sure each person is sentenced as fairly as possible no matter what color they are. Any type of racial judgment or racial issue is done very secretively in the justice system. This makes it very hard to prove the difference in their sentence was because of race.

As slavery was abolished in 1865 the problems still continued, laws were not enforced enough, and society started to create their own laws, and organizations such as the Black Codes, the Jim Crow Laws, and the Ku Klux Klan, which segregated and made every single person who was not white feel like an underdog, African Americans were segregated and blamed for many crimes, public lynchings to which people brought their children, and family to watch, the line of human decency was far gone, being black always meant danger, “I 'm black, I don’t have to do anything for ‘em to get me. The first white finger they point at me, I’m a goner...They own everything. They choke you off the face of the earth… They kill you before you die” (Wright, 325). No doubt things have changed since the late 1800’s, the involvement of African Americans in the everyday life of America makes them feel represented, from President Truman’s decision to integrate any person of color in the military in 1948, to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, but there is still so much hatred towards black people, and so much injustice, the United States claims to have a Justice that is blind, yet a study in CNN shows that Black men are more likely to be wrongly convicted, once again a failed system, where problems like racism are scarcely addressed because of fear

Racial bias is still a very active issue in society today. This paper explores the understanding of racial bias in business hiring. This is critical because racial bias continually uniforms businesses in hiring decisions. The prevalence of racial bias in business hiring, potential interventions, and explanations of why this occurs will be explored. How prevalent is racial bias in business hiring today and how can it be mediated?

Do Americans feel like there is still racial discrimination in today's everyday life? Racial discrimination is treating someone differently because of the color of his or her skin. Racial discrimination has been around for a long time. There are laws that are supposed to protect non whites from being racially discriminated against but these laws are not applied to everyone equally. There are a lot of different types of discrimination such as gender and age but the main type is racial. Racial discrimination still exist in America based on discrimination at work, police brutality, and arrest rates.

Society is blind to these factors because they coexist outside of our standing elements of our preexisting social injustices. “When facts do not fit with available frames people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into the way of thinking about a problem… without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all members of a targeted group, many will fall through the cracks of our movements, left to suffer in virtual isolation” (Crenshaw). An example of this concept would be a woman of color being discriminated against and denied an opportunity for an occupation. It is not seen as discrimination because that place of occupation hires men of color and has white women working for them. Therefore, the company is not resembling