Systemic Racism In Law Enforcement

On July 7th, 2016, Dallas experienced police shootings from sniper Micah Xavier Johnson that resulted in two civilians and seven police officers wounded, and five police officers killed (heavy.com). After the shooting incident, David O. Brown, Dallas Police Chief delivered a speech addressing the issues that police deal with, including racism. Racism has been a controversial issue since the years of 1501-1865. This was the slavery period when Africans brought to America were forced into slavery by providing cheap labor. At this time, there existed slave patrols, an organized system group of white men whose responsibility was to track down slave runaways, drive out potential uprising, and maintain discipline among the black slaves (Bloomberg.com). The Law enforcement today is similar to the slave patrols in that, similar to systemic racism within slave patrols, systemic racism exists within the law enforcement.
When discussing systemic racism, Racismnoway.com states, “It occurs when organizations, institutions or governments discriminate, either deliberately or indirectly, against certain groups of people to limit their rights… It regularly and systematically advantages some ethnic and cultural groups and disadvantages and marginalizes others.” The treatment of black people by the law …show more content…
This statement shows that the police view race as a factor when searching vehicles. The fact that police are more likely to profile black people as criminals is further evidence that there is systemic racism in the law enforcement community. Because the police fear that black people will inflict more harm than white people, they treat them with excessive force and