Conflict Is A National Issue

Racism is a widely discussed topic, and everyone agrees that it is something that only causes harm. People with racist views can view others from other groups as people who are lesser than them and might use physically actions to show their dislike. In response to that, more and more people are having their own ideas of how to identify and end racism. For example, Kwame Anthony Appiah who brought out the idea of extrinsic racism, the perspective of utilitarianism, and the Kantian ethic are views that show why racism is wrong and how it can be ended.

Though unjust to believe, humanity has a strong history of sexism and racism. In a society where men dominated culture, the period of the 1960’s used sexism and racism, as wit, to attract American men. Advertising was used to entertain a society embarked in the ideas of sexism and racism, and in a period of revolutionary change in technology, the presentation of these ideas were very common. Two very important themes in humanity, man’s relationship to himself, and man’s relationship to his community, were not taken seriously in this period of time. Relative to sexist and racist advertising, John Berger asserts that women are painted/depicted as owner dependent for the male to gaze at, and that women view such art from the same perspective

Beginning in late summer, this country became bombarded with stories in the news about police officers involved in some types of controversy. The controversy that started it all was an incident that happened in Ferguson, Missouri. Since August, there has been much discussion and public debate over whether a police officer’s use of deadly force against an unarmed teenager was justified. On August 9, 2014 a young man named Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson after he was stopped for walking in the middle of the street. Was the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Missouri an example of police using excessive force? Who decides what force is recommended or when it becomes excessive? To determine both these questions, we first must define what constitutes specific circumstances as excessive force. Officer Darren Wilson was not guilty of using excessive or lethal force if he felt his safety or the safety of others were in danger or if Michael Brown had surrendered peacefully and without resisting arrest.

The shooting of sparked a nation-wide movement not only demanding justice for Mike Brown, but also protesting the racial discrimination deeply embedded in the criminal justice system as well as various institutions in the larger American society. Furthermore, jfdkjfjdakljk something about international recognition. Similar protests and riots have been springing up in other cities since 1960s, and police killings of unarmed black men happen once every 28 hours (Kahle, 2014). However, Michael Brown’s killing has led to the most sustained uprising against police violence in at least two decades, centered among the African American residents of Ferguson, and has rallied significant nationwide support as well as international attention (Kahle, 2014; Taylor, 2014). The killing of Michael Brown is by no means an isolated event, and presence of racial tensions, especially in the St. Louis area, was already present long before. The large-scale pushback that the killing of Michael Brown has set in motion, then, seems to have been the last straw, prompting the eruption of decades of pent up frustration at a racist and oppressive system. That being said, what are the previous straws that have slowly pushed the black community in Ferguson to the breaking point? What are the factors that have caused these tensions to boil over and erupt into such a large-scale upheaval? This paper will explore some of the

Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed on August 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in Ferguson, Mo. Brown, an 18-year-old African-American was fatally shot and killed in the street shortly after robbing a convenience store. The disputed circumstances of the shooting of the unarmed young man sparked existing tensions in the majority-black community and law enforcements in Ferguson, Mo. The event received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracted protesters from outside the region, and generated a powerful debate about the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans and the police use of excessive force. The shooting prompted protests that shaken the area for weeks. The announcement of the grand jury that they decided not to indict Mr. Wilson set off another wave of protests. Many police officers have defended Wilson, pointing out that officers patrolling violent neighborhoods risk their lives, while demonstrators saw the case in terms of racism and police brutality. However, Brown’s killing and the following events in Ferguson became a national controversy touching on much larger national issues of race, justice, and police brutality. While the specifics of the Brown shooting involved is not clear, the situation would have been dramatically different had Wilson worn body camera which would have recorded the actual event. With new body camera technology

Today, racist sororities and fraternities on college campuses have grown to be a public crisis. Recently at the University of Oklahoma, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity released a video including racial slurs and lynching of African Americans (Glionna et al.). This activity shows that there is racism among Americans even in the twenty-first century. There are many other publicized cases involving racism in American society which proves that racism is not just an issue of the past. The past contains elements of racial misconduct that can be explained by James Baldwin and Brent Staples. Baldwin, a preacher and published writer, writes “Notes of a Native Son” to emphasize his experiences and actions towards racism of a different time (50-71). Staples, a reporter and columnist who wrote “Just Walk on By: Black Men in Public Spaces”, describes difficulties and stereotypes from the nation and how he suffered through, yet, another difficult time in American history (394-97). Both have a way with words in describing past racial issues. But in comparison of Baldwin and Staples, one can see that the type of racism they experience, their age and maturity, and their response to racism differ entirely by noting the different time eras of racism that each encounters.

“To gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity and to assert your own” –Aminata Diallo. The Book of Negros was written by Canadian author Lawrence Hill. The Book of Negros is about a young girl named Aminata who is brought to London, England, in 1802, by abolitionists who are petitioning to end the slave trade. As she awaits an audience with King George to speak on her personal experience of being a captured slave, she recounts on paper her life story. Aminata was abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village, Bayo in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves. Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. Despite suffering humiliation and

In August of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, an 18-year-old African American boy by the name of Michael Brown, was shot and killed by an on-duty police officer during the investigation of an alleged, strong-arm robbery (Clarke & Lefte, 2014). The incident ignited protests and violent riots that continued for several weeks throughout the United States. Similar high profile deaths of Eric Garner in New York City, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and Freddy Gray in Baltimore, have resulted in mass protests against law enforcement. For many, a deep divide was forged in the relations between law enforcement and the public; trust was lost on both sides. “Normally, official accounts of police fatally shooting black teenagers rest largely on the words of

Altercations and shootings like the Scott case are happening all over the country, they are being fueled by emotion, the media, and distrust. When something between a citizen and an officer happens often times the first instinct is for the public to respond with anger instead of an open-minded approach. Examples of this can be seen through condemning the police immediately and sometimes through violence. Often times these outbreaks of anger are linked to lack of knowledge regarding the situation and making general assumptions.

Claude McKay was a Jamaican that came to America to study agriculture, after winning prize money from a couple of books that he published in Jamaica. He left the United States just at the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. After the First World War, He wrote many poems that were in many ways radical to politics, poetic standards, and subject matter. His belief in politics inspired him to believe that "racism cannot be separated from capitalism", which gave an unequal wealth to people living in the country (Loeffelholz 2144). he states that while he is angered by the racism that is faced in the country, this adversity helps him become a stronger man.

The United States of America is comprised of citizens who have rights given to them that are explicitly written in the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. All of these people exhibit diversity. They have different religious and political beliefs, different sexual orientations, and different nationalities. Each man or woman has these freedoms given to them by the Constitution; however, public sentiment does not always follow the freedoms outlined in the Constitution. Racial conflict is an example of sentiment reflected in society that has existed for decades upon decades and has always been in the undertones of American society. Racial conflict is the most important and prominently recurring

Misunderstanding and miscommunications occur in our everyday lives. These are normally minor, and are cleared up in a matter of moments. In the life of a police officer, decisions are made nearly instantaneously, and can have dire consequences. In Ferguson Missouri, a police officer shot named Darren Wilson, shot and killed an unarmed Black teenager named Michael Brown. This case has received with global attention and was even addressed at the United Nation’s. A few days ago, a grand- jury decided not to charge Officer Wilson in the death of Michael Brown. A

As an international student from China, I did not experience serious discrimination as black people did; I did not feel strong oppression as LGBT group did; however, I was indeed treated in a different way, which was racist and discriminated. When I read the materials from class, I felt I had experienced the exactly same thing in my life. Segregation, which was written by Eduardo Bonilla-Slave in his book: Racism without Racists, still happened today in my life; marginalization and powerlessness, which were proposed by Iris Young in her book: Five Faces of Oppression, were common problem for all Chinese nonimmigrants. Nonimmigrants were not equal to illegal residents. Nonimmigrants meant those who held Visas while studying or working in the U.S. Nonimmigrants had the chances to apply for United States Permanent Resident Cards and then applied for United States citizenships to become Chinese Americans. However, they never get the chanced to be real Americans and enjoy the same rights as Americans did. To change this situation, Chinese nonimmigrants must get more political rights and more voice in the government, which was hard but a goal for every Chinese nonimmigrants to achieve.

Cries of targeting and discrimination ring through the news, but is that the truth? Perhaps the truth is skewed before the public eye, for amongst the 1,502 people shot and killed by on-duty police officers since January 1, 2015, “732 were white, and 381 were black (and 382 were of another or unknown race)” (“Aren’t more white people than black people killed by police?”). Any and every shooting, be it police related or terrorist related, is associated first with a social bias, and in the Charlotte shooting, it was the perception of a racial bias that sparked demonstrations across the city. However, Brentley Vinson – the officer who killed Scott – was black himself, leaving no room for speculations of racial prejudice, yet activists continued

”Jesse” is a short story, which is written by the author Joy Boothe. ”Jesse” was published in 2012, it is a fictional text and they story takes place over a period of 22 years. When the story is told, it jumps from one period to another, which means that we miss a few years, but the jumps are in a chronological order. Furthermore is the story written in a 1st person narrator’s point of view. The narrator ‘s father works at the plywood mill, and he gets a friend called Jesse. Jesse do often visit them at home, he brings a lot of happiness into their home, and he makes the narrator and the mother laugh, it is seen in the following quote “Mama laughs with us when Jesse makes sounds like toad frogs and crickets .” But according to the grandmother,