The Perfect Victim Downfall Summary

In the article “The Perfect-Victim Pitfall: Michael Brown, and Now Eric Garner”, author Charles Blow argues that racial discrimination in our justice system is still a very prevalent issue we should be paying attention to. Blow insists that we must look at the uncomfortable reality that racism still exists and is tainting our police force and the criminal justice system alike. He strongly believes that the excessive force utilized in recent police situations was due to racism. Charles Blow acknowledges the recent cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner as fueled by racial discrimination and urges the reader to not allow these cases to be swept under the rug.
The main purpose Charles Blow is trying to convey is that racial discrimination is

still a very large issue at hand in our justice system. His audience is most likely those people who are on the fence about the Michael Brown/Eric Garner cases, and need to be swayed into understanding the underlying racial issues. This assumes the audience has at least a minimal knowledge of the recent news, and is aware of the controversy behind it all. One of Blow’s subclaims is stated as, “Concentrated poverty plays a consequential role”, in he believes that high-crime neighborhoods have a direct correlation with poverty and black segregation. He also argues that historically blacks have been oppressed, and that this is valid information for what’s happening now. This article, and its subclaims, certainly utilize Pathos in attempting to make the audience feel enough anger to do something about it. The counterargument is that racism has no place in the recent events, and that the criminal justice system is working equally for all races alike.
The article “Are blacks to blame for cops’ actions?”, written by Steve Chapman, is a piece that first observes from an outside point-of-view. Steve Chapman writes of the opinions of some Americans, like former mayor Rudy Giuliani, to argue a side that is not necessarily his own. The article reports that it is not coincidence for a heavy police presence to be in a black community, and that much of the reasoning behind the recent events such as Michael Brown and Eric Garner are simply a result of a long-standing high rate of crime in those communities. Chapman does not deny there is a disproportionate number of black crime to white crime, though he goes on to argue that these statistics may no longer be relevant.
Chapman’s main claim, by the end of the article, is that black communities are to blame for the recent events, but it is not the fault of the people living within those communities.

The audience of this argument is most likely the same as the last article, but now including those people who are unsure about the statistics presented on black crime. This article also assumes its audience is up-to-date, and possibly unsure about the reasoning. One subclaim that Chapman reports is that black-on-black crime is not an issue created by blacks, but instead one created by white society and the degradation of black communities. He also suggests that in a ratio, the amount of black criminals to black population is quite low but is often in the spotlight because the black population is often crammed in one area. These claims are logos, as Chapman uses statistics and hard data to present his case. He observes that “less than 5 percent of African-Americans are involved in violent crime as perpetrators or victims”, and furthermore presents that in the last seventeen years homicide rates committed by blacks has dropped by more than half. The counterargument to this article would be that blacks are to blame for the recent police injustices. An audience unwilling to listen would be people who strongly believe black on black crime is the norm, and racism is not a key

component.
Before reading these two articles, I knew the basic stories behind both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. I believe that both articles presented their ideas very well, while the first works heavily on emotion the second article relies on data. For this reason, I find the second article a little bit easier to agree with. Having hard data and statistics certainly seems to bring more authority to the author, and gives something logical to understand behind the claim. Though the first article does its job well in making me angry for the right reasons, the second article gives me more motivation to want a change. The two articles are different for good reasons, while one uses basic logic to get you to understand, the other uses thick emotions to get you to feel. They are also very similar in the idea that they don’t believe the recent events mean that blacks are at fault, and that something is very wrong with the structure of our society to allow these recent events to occur.