Racial injustice in America: the black man In recent times, there have been series of incidents involving the police and the black man. Because of the never-ending systemic racism, racial profiling, racial inequality, and police brutality that black people experience in the hands of the police and the justice system, the Black Lives Matter movement was formed. It was formed to raise awareness for these biased treatments that black people encounter. They help people and families affected by injustice simply by organizing protests, but despite the awareness and pressure for racial injustice to stop, there is always another incident; either a police officer killing an innocent black person, or a white person getting a ‘slap on the wrist’ for a hate crime towards a black person, or a black person put in jail without trial. Unfortunately, there continues to be racial discrimination in America with the blacks suffering the most. Malveaux states how “Soledad O'Brien documented some of these attitudes in her most recent "Black in America" series. Included was an interview with a young black man who was stopped more than 100 times as he stood outside his college. Of course, he'd done nothing wrong, but police officers, "doing their duty," felt free to harass him”. It’s not just the Police or Justice system that is guilty of racial profiling or discrimination, the general population is guilty as well. Malveaux further mentions that, In a more telling segment from Obrien’s documentary series, two young men, one black and one white, staged the "stealing" of a bike to show how members of the public responded to watching the apparent theft. The young men were dressed similarly - T- shirts, casual pants, caps. People walked by as the white guy did everything he could to break the lock on the bike, including using a chain cutter. One even offered to help him take "his" bike, even though he acknowledged it was not his. Within moments of the black man approaching the bike, white people, one or two of whom called 911, surrounded him. As opposed to the benign response the white guy got, the black guy was simply assumed to be a criminal. Evidently, racial injustice continues to be a huge problem in America. In addition, diving into the case of Eric Garner and the NYPD officer, Daniel Pantaleo- Pantaleo used an illegal chokehold to subdue Garner which resulted in Garner’s death.
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If Garner wasn’t black, he might still be alive today, because more often, the police use excessive force to subdue mostly, black people. Pantaleo was investigated for his actions. Goldstein and Schweber states that, “at the center of the inquiry is the officer’s use of a chokehold — a dangerous maneuver that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago, but that the department cannot seem to be rid of”’ (nytimes.com/2014/07/19/nyregion/staten-island-man-dies-after-he-is-put-in-chokehold-during-arrest.html). Sadly, the grand jury of Staten Island did not indict Pantaleo. Another victim of a recent case of racial inequality was Kalief Browder: as reported in the New York Times- a 16-year-old boy who was ‘abducted’ by the NYPD and put in jail for 3 years without trial. Two years after his release, he committed suicide- he couldn’t take it anymore. A young boy’s life was stolen from him because of a broken criminal justice system that doesn’t favor black lives. Also, in a column in the Washington Informer, Malveaux says that, During the late 1990s, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's "stop and frisk" policies resulted in Af- rican-American men being stopped more than five times as frequently as Caucasians, even though these frisks led to the street. Hispanic men were stopped about three times as often as Caucasians. White men were stopped and frisked less frequently than others. Unconscious racism? Discretion? The law sanctions both. The stop and frisk program didn’t reduce crime rate, it only targeted and embarrassed mostly the minorities. In addition, recently, Sheryl Estrada of DiversityInc reported that, Allen Scarsella was sentenced to 15 years and two months in prison on Wednesday for shooting and injuring five Black men near a Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstration in Minneapolis on Nov. 23, 2015. The shootings followed nine days of peaceful demonstrations outside the city’s
If Garner wasn’t black, he might still be alive today, because more often, the police use excessive force to subdue mostly, black people. Pantaleo was investigated for his actions. Goldstein and Schweber states that, “at the center of the inquiry is the officer’s use of a chokehold — a dangerous maneuver that was banned by the New York Police Department more than 20 years ago, but that the department cannot seem to be rid of”’ (nytimes.com/2014/07/19/nyregion/staten-island-man-dies-after-he-is-put-in-chokehold-during-arrest.html). Sadly, the grand jury of Staten Island did not indict Pantaleo. Another victim of a recent case of racial inequality was Kalief Browder: as reported in the New York Times- a 16-year-old boy who was ‘abducted’ by the NYPD and put in jail for 3 years without trial. Two years after his release, he committed suicide- he couldn’t take it anymore. A young boy’s life was stolen from him because of a broken criminal justice system that doesn’t favor black lives. Also, in a column in the Washington Informer, Malveaux says that, During the late 1990s, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's "stop and frisk" policies resulted in Af- rican-American men being stopped more than five times as frequently as Caucasians, even though these frisks led to the street. Hispanic men were stopped about three times as often as Caucasians. White men were stopped and frisked less frequently than others. Unconscious racism? Discretion? The law sanctions both. The stop and frisk program didn’t reduce crime rate, it only targeted and embarrassed mostly the minorities. In addition, recently, Sheryl Estrada of DiversityInc reported that, Allen Scarsella was sentenced to 15 years and two months in prison on Wednesday for shooting and injuring five Black men near a Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstration in Minneapolis on Nov. 23, 2015. The shootings followed nine days of peaceful demonstrations outside the city’s