Police officers were once referred as law enforcers who brought peace to our communities in times of disarray. But as time goes on, police have obtained exorbitant amount of power that is evidently abused, resulting in their use of unnecessary and redundant force against civilians. Due to police brutality, police are seen less as peacekeepers and more as discriminatory tyrants who for decades tormented minorities, especially African Americans. Audre Lorde’s poem “Power” portrays the ongoing battle African Americans face caused by the law enforcement’s abuse of power. This poem recorded Lorde’s emotions and response to the murder of a ten-year old African American boy named Clifford Glover by a Caucasian officer and shares Lorde’s outrage and …show more content…
disgust towards the supremacist society that allows a child’s murder to be resolved without any true justice. She attempts to stand up against these racial injustices by using her poetic gift to allow people to apprehend and understand how powerless blacks are to the corrupt white law. In the poem “Power”, Lorde illuminates and explains the purpose and meaning of her poem by using the words: black, white, and magic. Lorde uses the word ‘black’ to emphasize how powerless African Americans are to the tyrannical law enforcement and the pain they have undergone from centuries of discrimination. She describes: a dead child dragging his shattered black face off the edge of my sleep blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders sis the only liquid for miles… (qtd. in The Black Unicorn, Lorde 108) The lifeless black child helplessly crawling represents the suffering African Americans sustained throughout these years and his blood symbolized the blacks’ unhealed wounds caused by the injustice that lingered in the crevices of their skin.
Lorde incorporated the words ‘dead’, ‘blood’, and ‘shattered’ with the keyword ‘black’ in order to give the audience the tone of sorrow and empathy for African Americans for the purpose of justifying her point. She states, “one black woman who said, ‘they convinced me’ meaning/ they dragged her 4’10” black woman frame/ over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval…” (33-36) and this quote is based on the fact that the white officer was wrongfully declared not guilty due to the partial jury being made of mostly white men and only one black woman. The white males deprived the only power that the Afro-American woman “…let go the first real power she ever had” (35) and depicted the unfair white privileges they …show more content…
acquired. The keyword ‘white’ emphasizes Lorde’s conception that Caucasian males, especially those that are police officers, wickedly authorize their power by the exploitation of minorities due to the racist ideology that the color of an individual’s skin depicts one’s amount of power.
Lorde narrates “…thirsting for the wetness of his blood/ as it sinks into the whiteness/ of the desert...” (14-16) and uses white to describe the dry, barren desert that invigorates a person’s power and strength. The white desert figuratively represents America and its abhorrent norm of white supremacy, and the sinking of the child’s blood into the desert depicts the continuous oppression and torment that endowed the blacks’ deprivation of power. The quote, “… over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval,” (34) portrays the prolonged influence that whites had and their expectation that minorities should always be compliant for their
consent. Lorde uses the word ‘magic’ to represent a person’s strength and power. She expresses that she “lost/ without imagery or magic/ trying to make power out of hatred and destruction…” (16-18). Lorde is awry without the element of her strength and desperate to recover it back from her thief. ‘Magic’ is the savior and liberator to their worriment and it provides the essential constituent for life. This keyword depicts the power that the white society abducted from African Americans, therefore she attempts to gain it back using hatred and destruction from her white robbers. In the poem “Power”, Lorde illuminates and explains the purpose and meaning of her poem by using the words: black, white, and magic. ‘Black’ emphasizing how powerless African Americans are to the tyrannical law enforcement, ‘white’ highlighting Lorde’s conception that Caucasian males wickedly authorize their power, and ‘magic’ symbolizing a person’s strength and power. Her descriptive language sets the tone and manifests the meaning the poem “Power”. For generations, whites have marginalized blacks into complying into their oppressive society, while slowly depriving them of their magic; resulting in the Caucasian polices’ abusive and corrupt ways and the government’s biased, unjust system.
Police brutality has been an apparent mark on the struggles, trials, and tribulations of people of minorities for years, primarily Black people. From the times of slavery to the present unlawful targeting and murders of black citizens with no justification, police brutality has been an enema in Black American culture for hundreds of years. Seen both in James Baldwin’s “Going to Meet the Man” and in the current happenings of the United States. The hashtag “#BlackLivesMatter” has been a focal point in the current struggle for equality of the races. The current outpouring of support for black lives and
In the early 1990’s in Los Angeles, California, police brutally was considered a norm in African Americans neighborhoods. News coverage ignores the facts of how African ...
The main claim of the article is that African Americans have been treated unfairly throughout history and are still being treated unfairly compared to Caucasians. One of the reasons given in support of the claim is “In the early 20th century, civil rights groups documented cases in which African-Americans died horrible deaths after being turned away from hospitals reserved for whites, or were lynched — which meant being hanged, burned or dismembered — in front of enormous crowds that had gathered to enjoy the sight.” (Editorial Board, screen 3) Another reason given in support of the claim comes from the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saying “The dead have something to say to a complacent federal government that cuts back-room deals with Southern Dixiecrats, as well as to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.” (Editorial Board, screen 3) The argument consisted of several components such as quotes from famous activists and referring to historical events involving African Americans being victims. The components are presented in a certain order with the historical events coming first, the quotes from famous activists coming second, and the overall explanation of the Black Lives Matter movement coming
Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Since there is a mass incarceration of African Americans, it is believed that African Americans are the cause of the severe increase of crimes. This belief has been sent out implicitly by the ruling class through the media. The media send out coded messages that are framed in abstract neutral language that play on white resentment that targets minorities. Disproportionate arrest is the result of racial disparities in the criminal justice system rather than disproportion in offenders. The disparities in the sentencing procedure are ascribed to racial discrimination. Because police officers are also biased, people of color are more likely to be investigated than whites. Police officers practice racial profiling to arrest African Americans under situations when they would not arrest white suspects, and they are more likely to stop African Americans and see them as suspicious (Alexander 150-176). In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and her comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. Fine believes it is critical to draw attention to the reality in why African Americans are being arrested at a much higher rate. This article reflects the ongoing racial issue by focusing on the injustice in treatment by police officers and the youth of color who are victims. This article is successful in being persuasive about the ongoing racial iss...
Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have and you come to us endangered” (82). Coates, now an adult, understood both the love and fear his father had when beating him. Additionally, Coates, from his experiences in his childhood, understood the growing up as an African American male in America is dangerous and unforgiving. Police brutality is the strong arm that America uses to discipline young African American teens who fail to comply with their requests.
Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, tells a story of Lorde’s childhood in Harlem through herself discovery and her acceptance of her dark skin color, a lesbian and most importantly, her being a woman in the 1950’s. As with her other works, Audre’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name was artistically produced which could be read as a poetic song. Audre introduces her early life experience of prejudice and self discovery to her audience to locate her position and status in her world. While growing up, Lorde could not describe what it meant to be different; she did not have the word to express her indifference she felt in the world. Lorde’s parents, especially her mother chose to ignore racism and protected their children from the shadow of racism by ne...
"Power" (1030) is a poem that has two different levels of meaning, literal and nonliteral. The first being a narrative poem literally about Clifford Glover, a ten-year-old African-American Queens boy who was shot by a Caucasian police officer that was acquitted by a jury. The second being the nonliteral, more poetic intent, Audre Lorde's reaction and feelings of fury and disgust over this incident. She entangles this racial injustice with her own furious and unsatisfied feelings in this piece. The first two stanzas are about Lorde's feelings and images she sees due to ...
Ta’ nehisi Coates wrote a letter to his son and one of the statements he made said, “I remember being amazed that death could so easily rise up from the nothing of a boyish afternoon, billow up like a fog.” The interpretation, “It is amazing how quickly death can overtake an African American male at any moment.” Eric Garner, a witness to this statement, and now a part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Black people are slowly divided by what really matters more injustice itself or injustice of a race that cannot and never existed. Have we become so blind that we forgot the many Sandra Blands that risked it all building the African American race? They then begin to categorize this as Black Women Matter. A parallel statement that not only applies to injustice but to black people themselves. Black men bash the bodies that birthed them and give them to the system to finish the job they have already started. If black women cannot be respected by their own what makes you think the next white man or cop will give them that
In 2014, the death of Eric Garner in New York City raised controversial conversations and highlighted the issues of race, crime, and policing in neighborhoods that tend to be poor and racially isolated. Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed after being tackled and held in a “chokehold.” According to the AP Polls in December 2014, “Police killings of unarmed blacks were the most important news stories of 2014.” The problem is that young black men are targeted by police officers in which they have responded with the misuse of force and policy brutality. It is evident that this issue affects many people nationwide. The civilians do not trust the police department and the justice system because they hold the perceptions that police officers are immune from prosecution despite their actions. In particular, black individuals, specifically black males, do not feel safe in the presence of police officers because they are not held accountable for their mistakes.
In other words, Carbado meant to prove that not only Black women fit into this definition of intersectionality, and therefore there are other groups of people, aside from Black women, who can share their same experiences. Carbado’s theory about gender and colorblind intersectionality comes close to being able to explain Audrey Lorde’s understanding of the Black women identity. But applying Carbado’s theory it becomes more inclusive towards other oppressed groups of people, and it highlights Carbado’s expansion of intersectionality within Lorde’s essay.
Therefore, it shows that Lorde has to stand up for herself in order to go to the dining car. The essay reflects on when Lorde and her family visit a store, they were told to leave the store which made them feel excluded from the crowd. The author writes, “My mother and father believed that they could best protect their children from the realities of race in America and the fact of the American racism by never giving them name, much less discussing their nature. We were told we must never trust white people, but why was never explained, nor the nature of their ill will” (Lorde, 240). The quote explains that Lorde’s parents thought they can protect their child in United States from the racism, however, they had to go through it and face racism in their daily life. This shows that her parents were aware of racism, which they might have to stand up for their rights, but they did not take the stand for themselves as well as their child. Therefore, her parents guided them to stay away from white people. This tells readers that Lorde has to fight for the independence that she deserves along with going against her
Officers are trained and taught different polices that require them not to be biased towards any gender or race. Such officers include Sunil Dutta, if you don’t want to get shot, tasted pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.” (Dutta) uses policies to their advantage. Lack of African-American officers, mainly in communities with citizens of color, can lead to an inquiry that there is a bias in law enforcement agencies and their policies. With recent events in the news displaying the misconduct of officers in an African-American communities like, in July of 2014, where the death of Eric Garner because of “chokehold” by a police officer hit home for many African-Americans and made them question the legislative decisions on policies causing a distrust and lack of confidence within the police departments, shying away citizens from
Police Brutality is a current problem that exist within the United States that needs to be resolved immediately. The old childhood game “cops and robbers” is no longer just a playful game. Children no longer get excited about being either the cop or the robber in this innocent game. Now children fear playing this harmless game because police are mistakenly accusing children’s play guns to be real. This results in police officers killing innocent and unarmed children over false assumptions. Police are trained to shoot to kill, not disable. This is why so many innocent minorities are dying yearly. Police brutality needs to be put to a stop so police remember whom their paid to serve and protect – not themselves, but our communities. This
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve.
The movement BlackLivesMatter have outed hundreds unlawful officers and victims that never got the justice needed. The same characteristics (color and style) that emulates strong, noble people can backfire. Black people in this country who actively resist dehumanization makes a call to action and a response to anti-Black racism in our current society. (Cullors, 2015) The growth of the movement has moved country-wide, first starting in the south; the south had always had history of racism and anti-black impulses. This movement is continuing to carry up north and west, and is projected that any officer can be the next one to unlawfully kill another black individual. These immoral police officers are no different from the rest of the police force, their uniforms are no different color or style they do not have different titles, there is no distinction between the these two types of officers. African Americans are persuaded to be more cautious and angry towards police officers; anyone with a cop uniform can be considered a threat to their life. Innocent cops were murdered in retaliation to the unfair judicial systems that are not punishing these cops. Once a police-like uniform is worn it not only once symbolizes honor and power, but t too many communities