Summary In Battleford, Saskatchewan an Indigenous man, Colten Boushie, was fatally shot and murdered by Gerald Stanley, a caucasian Saskatchewan farmer in August of 2016. A group of young, Indigenous adults along with Colten Boushie were consuming alcohol during the day and attempted to break and enter a truck on a nearby farm. They were unsuccessful in following through on their attempt to commit breaking and entering due to a flat tire. In an effort to find help, this group went to the Stanley property in hopes of getting help with a flat tire. Gerald Stanley believed that his ATV was being stolen and fired warning shots believing it would scare the young adults away. When Stanley reached into the vehicle to take the keys, he claims that ‘his gun “just went off”’ (Graveland, 2018). The case came to trial this year, 2018, and the jury came to a verdict of not guilty which upset Boushie’s family, the First Nations people, and many …show more content…
The incident in which Colten Boushie was shot by Gerald Stanley is an example of an interaction of 2 different groups in society and their behaviour towards each other. In “[exposing] racial tensions”, that examines the racial discrimination which might have created a bias for members the jury to find the man of a similar social class or background not guilty. As a minority, Indigenous people are small in number compared to the rest of society and as a result are seen as a lower class on the social hierarchy. This case displays the idea that when minorities face sociological problems within the legal system or in general, society, they are less able to ensure the justice being served. A sociologist would be interested in studying the response to Boushie’s death and what general patterns of human behaviour arise from the Indigenous
Downie believed that Canada must eliminate the Indian Act that is racial discrimination. He always strongly supports Indigenous rights. In 2016, during the nationally broadcast celebration of The Tragically Hip, Downie openly avowed in front of thousands of people that Trudeau is the first prime minister who will fulfill the rights of the Aboriginal Peoples (Hipmuseum, n.d.). Hopefully, it seems to be true, because the prime minister Justin Trudeau show a positive signal toward the Indigenous societies. According to the CBC news, Trudeau declared to the First Nations leaders in Gatineau, Quebec that he drew up his plan for Indigenous people. He mentions that he would fulfill the promises he made during the election campaign, such as commencing a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, making education investments for Indigenous people. He also promises that to raise the 2% cap on funding for Indigenous peoples programs, enforcing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and abolishing all one-sided laws that enforced on Indigenous people (Mas, 2015). Within a year, the prime minister begins a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and invest $2.6 billion over four years for First Nations education (Bryden, 2016). The other promises are still
A non-guilty verdict in the murder trial of Bradley Barton accused of killing Cree mother of three Cindy Gladue who bled to death from an eleven centimetre internal laceration argues that the wound was the result of rough sex. Gladue known in Edmonton as a sex worker spent two night with Barton in an Edmonton hotel room in June 2011. This essay will argue the appeal that was warranted through looking firstly at feminist analyses of sexual assault and legal consent, secondly, the contexts of intersectional power relations/ interlocking oppressions such as Gladue being a women from a Cree nationality who works as a sex worker, thirdly the problematic notion of Gladue being the bearer
Louis Riel, even today, remains one of the most controversial figures in Canadian history. He was a political and spiritual leader of the Métis of the Canadian Prairies who sought to preserve Métis rights and culture as their homelands came progressively under the Canadian influence. The circumstance of his death had lasting political ramifications in Canada and was opposed by many. His trial is arguably one of the most famous in Canadian history, and the question as to whether it was unjust is a topic of debate. Louis Riel
Between the years of 1954 to 1968, racism was at its peak in the South. This occurred even though the blacks were no longer slaves as of 1865 when slavery was abolished. The blacks were treated very poorly and they were still considered unequal to whites. Hiram, the main character of this novel, is a 9 year old boy who is clueless about racism. He is moved from the South to the North, away from his favorite grandfather. He wishes to go back to Mississippi and to be with his grandfather again. He never understood why his father, Harlan, wouldn't let him go. Hiram, who moved from Mississippi to Arizona, is in for a rude awakening when he is visiting his Grandfather in Greenwood, Mississippi at 16 years old. In the novel Mississippi Trial 1955, there were many complicated relationships among Hiram, Harlan, and Grandpa Hillburn. These relationships were complicated because of racism at
The idea that indigenous Australian communities are underprivileged and do not receive the same justice that the white community accrues is represented through Jay Swan and his interactions with the corrupt white police officers and the indigenous locals of the town. My empathetic response to the text as a whole was influenced directly by way the text constructs these ideas as well as my knowledge of the way indigenous Australians are represented in the mainstream media and the behaviour of the police force as an institution. These contextual factors and the way Sen has constructed ideas influenced me to empathise with the indigenous
In 1973 a thirty-three year-old Caucasian male named Allan Bakke applied to and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. In 1974 he filed another application and was once again rejected, even though his test scores were considerably higher than various minorities that were admitted under a special program. This special program specified that 16 out of 100 possible spaces for the students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other 84 slots were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. What happened to Bakke is known as reverse discrimination. Bakke felt his rejections to be violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, so he took the University of California Regents to the Superior Court of California. It was ruled that "the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment"1 The clause reads as follows:"...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."2 The court ruled that race could not be a factor in admissions. However, they did not force the admittance of Bakke because the court could not know if he would have been admitted if the special admissions program for minorities did not exist.
Back in the early 1800’s, America was having a hard time accepting others. The Americans did not like having immigrants living in the same area, and they really hated when immigrants took their jobs. Many Americans discriminated against African Americans even if they were only ⅛ African American. Americans were not ready to share their country and some would refuse to give people the rights they deserved. This can be seen in the Plessy vs Ferguson and Yick Wo vs Hopkins. In Plessy vs Ferguson, Plessy was asked to go to the back of the train because he was ⅛ African American.
After contacting and interviewing all three suspects, we discovered the suspects killed the victim during a argument over a gun that had been used in an earlier robbery. Ballistics from a gun discovered in a inspection found one of the suspect suspects matched the weapon used in the shooting. The suspects were arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The case was closed and this concludes my summary of my
Comack, E. (2012). Racialized policing: Aboriginal people's encounters with the police. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.
Turner, Billy. 1986. “Race and Peremptory Challenges During Voir Dire: Do Prosecution and Defense Agree?” Journal of Criminal Justice 14: 61-69.
Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. “ Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes on every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” In daily basis, every single person on this earth is facing different kind of discrimination. In general discrimination prevails in life particulars. We are living in a world that is based on qualifications. Being a normal human is no longer accepted. However, African Americans are one of the most populations in this world who faced discrimination in general: Racial discrimination in particular. Although African Americans faced racial discrimination due to slavery period hundred years ago, racial discrimination still prevails in African Americans life in the present, lead by huge psychological affects.
As in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee there was a great deal of injustice in the south in the early 1900s and before. Things only seemed to get worse when the depression. “We were always poor, but the Depression was definitely worse”(Johnson). The fiction in the book could very well be based on real facts of the way the blacks were treated in the past. Blacks of the time could not get a fair chance in real life or in the book. For that reason Tom Robinson could never have gotten a fair trial in Alabama in the 1930’s.
With a topic as frequently discussed as racial discrimination within our criminal justice system, there are many opinions and theories as to why our correctional facilities are populated with the type of inmates that are housed within. Fortunately, it has not been proven true that our criminal justice system is run in a racially discriminating manner, rather debated and analyzed in many lights. Discrimination is prohibited, as a matter of constitutional and statutory law, in a wide range of settings (Banks, Eberhardt & Ross, 2006). Who is it that teaches us who to be afraid of within society? Who are the “bad guys” that we should avoid? How many times do our parents tell us during our childhood to avoid certain people and places? Examples being a stranger with a van, neighborhoods to avoid late at night and other precautions that shape the way we think and believe as we grow of the dangers within our society. These same precautions that we are accustomed to during our childhood become embedded into our minds throughout adolescence and leading into adulthood. How do our parents determine who the “bad guys” are that we ought to avoid? If our own parents are raising us to distinguish between individuals, are they possibly raising us in a racially discriminating way? If that were the case, then who are we to criticize our criminal justice system for possibly doing the same?
Society shapes racial inequality in the modern United States and Wayne Brekhus (2015) looks at how social marking is an element of culture in American society. When discussing race, people tend to talk about discrimination against marginalized communities (i.e. non-whites, females, homosexuals, etc.). They actively look at the marked category--those marginalized communities-- and the unmarked goes ignored. Berkhus believes that there are two possible reasons why these unmarked categories are avoided. Either the issue is psychological where individuals “deliberate[ly] disciplin[e] the mind to ignore the irrelevant” or it is sociological and is caused by the “deeply ingrained unconscious pattern of cultural or subcultural selective attention
According to the materials to which I have been exposed in this course, in my informed judgement, the views of these Millennials are very inaccurate. The society on which we live in today still produces discrimination towards minority groups. These groups include but are not limited to: African-Americans and women. Evidence of discrimination are exemplified via an article by authors Joe Feagin, Adriane Fugh-Berman, and Roxanna Harlow (McIntyre, 2015). These articles examine the discrimination that minority groups face in our society and offers an explanation (social factors) to how this millennial obtained misinformed views.