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Solving racism today
Problems in African American society
Problems in African American society
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As Jodi Rell once said, “At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security.” We all want to feel safe and secure. It’s a human need to feel safe. I would say our general public could be considered pretty safe. But there are people who threaten the safety of the general public. One threat comes from African-Americans. The threat isn’t from every single African-American, but is from a large amount of them. They can be dangerous, and to protect the public, the police need to target these African-Americans to help keep everyone safe. Everybody grows up in a different place. For some people, including African-Americans, they grew up in a poor neighbor. You’re probably wondering what growing up in a poor neighborhood has to do with anything. Well, let me tell you this. According to Congressperson Danny Davis, he said that 70% of black men who are between ages 18-45 that grew up in a neighborhood with poverty especially in Chicago are ex-offenders. This means that because these African-American men grew in poverty, they’re more likely to commit crimes. And from the U.S. Department of Commerce, a total of 26.2 percent, or 10.8 million African Americans grew up in poverty. Knowing all this, over 5.5 million African-Americans …show more content…
that grew up in poverty will end up committing a crime. That’s a huge amount of people. Since so many African-Americans have the probability of committing a crime, the police need to target them. I understand that americans of both the black and the white race do commit crimes. But we still need to specifically target African-Americans. African-Americans commit more severe crimes than white Americans. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, around 4,950 white Americans commit the crime of murder. Around 5,140 black Americans commit the crime of murder. And then, in a less severe crime of aggravated assault, more white Americans will commit that crime. Both crimes are bad. But wouldn’t you agree murder is a much more severe crime than aggravated assault? These African-Americans are committing more severe crimes. Do you want these people committing hundreds of murder crimes? The answer is obviously that you don’t. There were probably so many people who died because the police were discouraged to specifically target those African-Americans murders. Think about those poor people who were murdered. Their lives were unfairly taken away from them. You don’t want to end up like one of them. The police need to target African-Americans to help lower the number of black americans who commit murder and other severe crimes like that. You may have already gathered this, but African-Americans do in fact commit more crimes than white Americans .
In a set of crime statistics by the FBI, it was stated that out of the crimes of Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, and robbery, about 51.4% of black Americans committed those crimes. For the same list of crimes, 46.7% of white Americans committed them. The difference between the two percentages is obvious. African-Americans commit more crimes than white Americans. American-Americans are more dangerous than white Americans. African-Americans need be targeted by the police. We don’t want crimes to continuously be committed. Since African-Americans are the ones committing more crimes, we need to target
them. Sure, you may be thinking that this is racist towards African-Americans. But, in all honestly, this is for the public. This is for the people. This is for the safely off all those people. Targeting African-Americans will help keep us safe. The crime rates for African-Americans are dangerously high. If the police don’t do anything, those numbers could just get higher and higher. Targeting African-American is for the greater good. Just as the laws provide safety, having police target African-Americans will also bring safety. As I said before, it’s a human need to feel safe. African-Americans threaten that safety. Having the police target African-Americans will help bring a greater feeling of safety back to the public. The crime rates of African-Americans won’t suddenly stop if the police target them, but they will decrease. Knowing that the police will target them if they commit a crime, African-Americans are also less likely to commit the crime. So as the amount of African-Americans committing crimes are decreasing, the feeling of safety is increasing. So let’s get that feeling of safety! Let the police target African-Americans. And soon, the goal of safety will be achieved.
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
Anderson’s theory examined African Americans living in America’s inner cities that are driven to follow the “street code” and work to maintain respect, loyalty, and their own self-image. The “street code” Anderson is referring to is “a cultural adaptation” which is the cause of violent crime in America’s inner cities (Anderson Article PDF, 3). Since these people are living in mainly impoverished neighborhoods with easy access to drugs and guns, as well as high rates of crime and violence, “everyone feels isolated and alienated from the rest of America” (Vold, 187). Anderson continues to distinguish between “decent” people and “street people.” Those who are “decent” families live in accordance with a “civil code” that upholds values in comparison with the rest of society such as maintaining a job, obtaining an education, protecting their children and following the law. Additionally, “street” families tend to fend for themselves, and when young, grow up without adult supervision and are often abused. This alone causes a dangerous environment because children then, “learn that to solve any kind of interpersonal problem one must quickly resort to hitting or other violent behavior” (Anderson Article PDF, 5). When brought up in an inner city “street” family, racism is a leading factor that causes the youth to construct a negative outlook on the rest of society. When these inner city, lo...
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
Some consider racial profiling a viable tool to reduce crime. The New Century Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Oakton, VA, published a report on the American Renaissance website, stating that African-Americans commit 90% of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence that occurs every year in the United States. They are more than fifty times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than vice versa. According to this same report, African-Americans are much more likely to commit violent crimes than whites and wh...
...m. Race is a legitimate factor for police to take into account -- along with other factors. No one should not be stopped or harassed or anything like that solely because of his race, ethnicity, etc. But police officers, who understand the real world, and the workings of actual neighborhoods -- should not be expected to ignore their real-world experiences. Liberals assure that crime is caused by poverty and lack of education. But the big issue is that blacks are, in fact, disproportionately poor, so people end up thinking that it is conceivable to suggest that blacks (young black men, actually) are disproportionately more likely to commit crimes. But, is it conscionable to forget about the Basic American right, the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
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 male incarceration has done much to ensure that black female-headed households are now equal in poverty. Black male imprisonment also has much to do with rising black male unemployment rates. As these men re-enter the workforce, they now likely have less skills than when they first entered prison. There are few, if any, programs, which train these men to effectively re-enter society. As jobs continue to move out further and further into the suburbs, these males, who are from the inner city, are left with few living wage employment options.
Even though racism has always been a problem since the beginning of time, recently in the United States, there has been a rise in discrimination and violence has been directed towards the African American minority primarily from those in the white majority who believe they are more superior, especially in our criminal justice system. There are many different reasons for the ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system between the majority and the minority, but some key reasons are differential involvement, individual racism, and institutional racism to why racial disparities exist in
These authors’ arguments are both well-articulated and comprehensive, addressing virtually every pertinent concept in the issue of explaining racially disparate arrest rates. In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, Wilbanks insists that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is a fabrication, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Walker, Spohn and DeLone’s The Color of Justice dissents that not only are African Americans not anywhere near the disproportionate level of crime that police statistics would indicate, they are also arrested more because they are policed discriminately. Walker, Spohn and DeLone addi...
Another reason racialized mass incarceration takes place is because of the high rates of poverty and unemployment for inner city African Americans, especially those with low-education and low skill levels. Urban ghettos have been associated with the problem of social disorganization and crime. The biggest reason for this is the war on drugs. There is no substantial proof that verifies African Americans are more involved in illegal drug consumptions than other groups are. However they are arrested more than other groups. Bobo and Thompson stated that blacks are almost 34% involved in drug-related arrests though only 14% of those are among regular illegal drug users. Among drug related convictions, African Americans make up half of the cases whereas only 26% of the white population is convicted. As Bobo and Thompson stated, “Illegal drug consumption seems to know no race. Incarceration for drug-related charges, however, is something visited in a heavily biased manner on African Americans.”
African Americans are only 13 percent of the population in America, but almost half have been wrongfully convicted of crimes since 1989. Innocent black people are seven times more likely to be convicted than innocent white men. Partly because homicide rates are slightly higher with black people than with whites, so black men and women are more likely suspected and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
Years of isolation due to their race, a subculture has developed that promotes violence, the selling of drugs, and public assistance as a source of income. Because it is vital for the inhabitants of this community to conform to its culture, little time is spent expanding upon their ability to socialize effectively enough to grow. Because of this social incompetence, awareness and access to the vital building blocks that make one successful are not easily obtain and require much effort. Therefore, the path of an African-American from “The Hood” to success is one less paved as the obstacles to reach success, as a contributing member of society, tends to outweigh the ease of
Some will say that the police are just doing their job and they put themselves in harm’s way daily. While that statement is true, the duty of an office is to protect and serve. Police should protect the lives of those who fear what they don’t understand. Many young people do not know what their rights are and they fear that being arrested is the end. Not every police officer is looking to put black man in prison, but there is a pattern that cannot be
Today, there are a lack of a sufficient amount of blacks in law enforcement. “Blacks are among the minority groups that is under-represented in policing” (Kringen 16). This evidence proves that there is a need for more blacks in the law enforcement ranks. “According the US Census Bureau, nationally blacks make up 13.6% of the population” (Kringen 16). “However, Reaves says that, Black
“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 States. Whenever you hear about an African American being killed by the United States police, you never see All Lives Matter supporters protesting.