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Racial inequality and its effects
Racial discrimination and criminal justice
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In the 21st century, justice and equality should not be two topics that Americans have a hard time recognizing. Americans should all feel like they are being treated the same, and that there is no more privileged group. Instead of prejudice and hatred, they expect to receive equal treatment and fairness through any situation. Unfortunately, this is not the case and the world is suffering from a dilemma because many feel that Caucasians are able to get away with crimes that African Americans are not. The definition of justice is the process or the result of using laws to fairly judge and punish criminals, but in today’s society this doesn’t mean a thing. Fairness, equality, and justice are just misused words in modern America because …show more content…
As of today, police brutality is one of many major conflicts that some American people depict as heinous. Most feel that minorities and whites are handled differently when confronted by the police, so they protest and riot to try to make their voices heard. Not only are people being treated differently during the arrest, but this prejudice has converted over to the courtroom also. The courts are filled with bias; therefore, a black man will hardly ever have justice served in a case against a white man. Previous cases prove this statement to be true. Statistically, black men are more than six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated in federal and state prisons, and serve an almost 60% longer sentence. Many believe that this is not fair, but the judicial system believes that you cannot have justice and not have fairness too. Implying that they are the same. The U.S. Constitution makes no distinction as to the wealth or status of persons, “all are equal before the law, and all are equally subject to judgment and punishment when they violate the law” (U.S. Const. Preamble). People of different races are committing the same crimes, and being ruled to diverse sentences. Justice is corrupt and it is destroying Americans and everything they believe …show more content…
There has never actually been any equality in America. One group has always controlled the way our world functioned and things will continue to be this way. Martin van Creveld spoke on his book Equality: The Impossible Quest saying, “There is equality before God and there is equality here on earth. There is natural equality and there is the kind of equality that human society creates” (87). The equality that Americans are seeking is the absolute opposite of what human society has created and embellished into the minds of certain people. It has granted most white people the opportunity to feel comfortable belittling those of other ethnicities. It has given black males the frame of mind that they have no chance at making it into corporate America, only in the streets or jail cells. The Declaration of Independence states, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (US 1776). All Americans are supposedly granted the same rights and possibilities, this is proven to be untrue. The constitution was supposedly built upon the fact that everyone is to be judged and punished equally; unfortunately, equality is not something America believes
Justice is among the most significant moral and political concepts. The word originates from the Latin jus, meaning “right or law”. All throughout history, injustice has been an issue each individual has experienced during his or her daily life. Even today we are still experiencing riots and protests from African-Americans in order to attain justice. In Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by Anna Deavere Smith, readers see an example of injustice through the Rodney King case and the shooting of Latasha Harlins. Rodney-King and Latasha Harlins experienced racial injustice, which can be described as the denial of rights based on an individual’s race or racial background. Both two victims were mistreated for the color of their skin and were stripped
For as long as I can remember, racial injustice has been the topic of discussion amongst the American nation. A nation commercializing itself as being free and having equality for all, however, one questions how this is true when every other day on the news we hear about the injustices and discriminations of one race over another. Eula Biss published an essay called “White Debt” which unveils her thoughts on discrimination and what she believes white Americans owe, the debt they owe, to a dark past that essentially provided what is out there today. Ta-Nehisi Coates published “Between the World and Me,” offering his perspective about “the Dream” that Americans want, the fear that he faced being black growing up and that black bodies are what
Although the U.S. Constitution states that “all men are created equal,” during America’s early days it only applied to upper class white men. This upsets many people in the United States. When the Constitution first came into play, only the rich white men were treated right. As the years progressed, more and more whites
The justice system is in place in America to protect its citizens, however in the case of blacks and some other minorities there are some practices that promote unfairness or wrongful doing towards these groups. Racial profiling is amongst these practices. In cases such as drug trafficking and other criminal acts, minorities have been picked out as the main culprits based off of skin color. In the article “Counterpoint: The Case Against Profiling” it recognizes racial profiling as a problem in America and states, “[In order to maintain national security] law-enforcement officers have detained members of minority groups in vehicles more than whites”…. “these officers assume that minorities commit more drug offenses, which is not the case” (Fauchon). In relationship to law enforcement there has also been many cases of police brutality leaving young blacks brutally injured, and even dead in recent years, cases such as Michael Brown, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddy Gray just to name a few. Many of these young men were unarmed, and the police involved had no good justification for such excess force. They were seen as threats primarily because of their skin color. Despite the fact this nation is trying to attain security, inversely they are weakening bonds between many of its
To illustrate, majority of blacks are stop by police more than any other racial groups. Police brutality is base on ethnicity. Officers seem to target black communities for many reasons. Racist cops might view blacks as less innocent compared to whites. Growing up as an African American you witness hearing your parents telling your male siblings to respect officers and to interact with them differently than they would do their families and friends. After the fatal shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The public wanted justice because the incident was not handled properly. The people wanted to express their concerns. After this incident I remember more allegation from black communities begin surfacing that the police use excessive force against them,
America has always been a country with different cultures, races, and people. Only, not everyone has been accepting of different kinds of people. A persons thoughts on another person can differ depending on a person's race, gender, or age. In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, racial equality is nonexistent. The African Americans were treated like they weren’t people, and were totally isolated from the Maycomb, Alabama society. America will never achieve true racial and social equality because people are ignorant, have a history of being prejudiced, and are unjust.
Many inequalities exist within the justice system that need to be brought to light and addressed. Statistics show that African American men are arrested more often than females and people of other races. There are some measures that can and need to be taken to reduce the racial disparity in the justice system.
To look closely at many of the mechanisms in American society is to observe the contradiction between constitutional equality and equality in practice. Several of these contradictions exist in the realm of racial equality. For example, Black s often get dealt an unfair hand in the criminal justice system. In The Real War on Crime, Steven Donziger explains,
When a person of color is being sentenced the unjustness of sentencing is blatantly shown such as in the article Race Sentencing and Testimony which stated, “ These scholars conclude that black male arrestees “face significantly more severe charges conditional on arrest offense and other observed characteristics” and attribute this primarily to prosecution charging decisions” (Mauer 4). This piece of writing explains that for no other reason than race do these people get convicted far more significantly than others who have the same charge but are white, which continues as far as giving a person of color the max sentence that they can have on a certain charge just for the color of their skin. The justice system has turned into the opposite of what it claims to be and continues to grow as a racist overseer, bashing down on those that they believe should be punished as harshly as possible simply for the color of their skin. The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but are being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years
It is important that each case is treated equally when carrying out justice to keep the United States a safe place, to form a nation with good education, and to teach people to judge right from wrong. However, sometimes rights are taken from the wrong people. Our legal system is creating a dangerous path for African Americans in our country because of its’ highest per capita incarceration rate, its’ favoritism towards those in power, and its failure to carry out justice to protect people from the dangerous acts of those who are defined as criminals. Was justice really served in the “State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman” case? Is our justice system fair to all races?
I agree that true equality will exist when everybody is treated equal, no matter what race, religion, or sex they are. Equality does not exist when people are being punished for how pretty they are, how smart they are, what race or religion they are, etc. If people could learn to stop judging everything they believe to be not normal and just accept people for who they truly are, then I believe that this country would have a chance at true equality. No matter how much effort people put into changing the way people are treated, there is always going to be somebody who is against the rules, meaning, there will never be true equality, but you can come close to it if a majority of the citizens could learn to stop judging people.
Chaney and Robertson, (2013) stated that “The Department of Justice office of Civil Rights has investigated more than a dozen police departments in major cities across the country on allegations of racial discrimination or police brutality”. Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive physical force or verbal assault and psychological intimidation. White police officers who grew up in the south and were raised to see African Americans in a negative way have a lower opinion of them. However, not all white police officers are from the south, some say that police officers are just abusing their power. When we look at what is going on around the country, it appears racism plays a part in police brutality. Even during this new digital age, there are video cameras in police cars facing the front of the vehicle, but that still does not hinder police using excessive
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Protests around the world have taken place to fight for justice in the black community. The immense number of deaths of unarmed black men and women is a clear sign that they are more likely to be killed by police than white people. Physical violence and excessive use of force by the U.S. police towards African Americans are seen in the news regularly. “People, including police officers, hold strong implicit associations between blacks, and probably Hispanics, and weapons, crime and aggression," said Jack Glaser. Police brutality statistics show that African Americans are three times more likely to be murdered by cops than any other race. Racial disparity in the United States is a coherent reason for the increase of criminal injustice in the United
Equal treatment in society and under the law is the first step to equality in the United States, and then the rest of the world. Our country always seems to rise to the occasion when freedom and liberty are challenged, and this nation’s people pride themselves on that fact. So why shouldn’t the United States lead by shining example in the fight for equality? The equal treatment of all people is one of the largest steps society can make in the fight for equality, but that, of course, is not