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Kimberley Grant SYD4700-0002 Hena Wadhwa 20 April 2017
Looking Closer In the past few years, names such as Sean Bell, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and many more have been discussed by individuals who justified their untimely deaths or expressed the unjust about it. Police brutality has been a centralized topic in newspapers, social media, word of mouth, and other forms of communication. The question still remains whether this is the result of systemic racial discrimination by law enforcement or these events simply case by case situations. The reason I chose to provide insight about African-Americans and police brutality is because I think it is a topic that is often spoken of but has not been resolved. Not all the cases affecting African Americans in matters of police brutality have received the required attention. Throughout this campaign I have created a website of individuals mentioned and their police encounters that should not have resulted in the injuring or death of the individuals. According to an article written by Robert Staples called “White power, black crime, and racial politics�, he explains a case where an African-American professor from Harvard University was questioned in front of his property about his residency. After the professor unloaded his luggage from a limousine he was struggling to unlock his front door. His limousine
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driver, who was also African American, assisted in helping him to push open the door when a police officer arrived. The police officer wanted proof that Professor Gates lived on the property but Gates challenged his authority which resulted in him being arrested (Staples, 2011). Gates yelled out that “This is what happens to black men in America”. About 40 percent of white Americans believe the officer’s procedure was correct. Staples states “Why did such a division exist, and in spite of conciliatory statements on the part of Gates and the president following the episode, is it wise for the US as a nation to ‘put the event behind us?’ …but such statements allow whites to continue in the comfortable illusion that racial profiling can be defined merely regarding individual attitudes on the part of cops” (Staples, page 31). This is to say that 40 percent of white Americans may believe that the actions of law enforcers are determined by one’s attitude and not so much about race. Staples explain that whites have very different experiences with the law than blacks. Whites may view the law as “a force to serve and protect” whereas blacks may view the law as “an agent that denies their rights” (Staples, page 33). This dates back to slavery where the criminal justice system did not acknowledge African-Americans as citizens and did not protect them from their slave owners, racist groups, and individuals. According to Staples, as early as 1963, law enforcers were legally allowed to take any black person they saw walking around without a pass from their master, this included freed, and enslaved blacks. Tactics as such have been exercised after slavery where people were refused land or property based on their income, race, sex, and etc. Institutionalized discrimination such as redlining became a way to ensure that African Americans did not live in a white neighborhood. These practices aren’t far behind us and people still may practice this or have unconscious biases where it becomes unusual to see a black man in a specific neighborhood.
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African Americans have a high probability of interacting with law enforcement based on the way they look. According to Devon Carbado and Patrick Rock, in “What Exposes African Americans to Police Violence�, police concentrate on areas of high crime, criminalizing nonserious areas including the schools, racial segregation where African Americans are suspicious when they are not in a predominantly black neighborhood, and group vulnerability where African Americans are targeted and were less likely to report harassment from police officers and/or less likely to be believed (Worth, page 1). Carbado and Rock explain that the repeated interactions between police and African Americans increase the likelihood of police violence which is the result of stereotypes of African Americans being viewed as violent and dangerous. Stereotypes such as African Americans being violent and dangerous are a part of the reason others perceive violent forces as appropriate and even necessary. This may be part of the reason why people of other races do not see an issue with excessive force or may unintentionally not realize the severity of force an officer is using on an African American. According to Carbado and Rock, the increased exposure to police is one possible the reason for increased incarceration rates for African Americans and those officers who interact with African Americans under the impression that they have been to jail/prison before have the tendency to handle those individuals with less care. Carbado and Rock also explain that African Americans who have ongoing experiences with law enforcement tend to resist, assert rights, or flee. According to police violence published in the year 2015, some revelations were made where African Americans were the main victims of police brutality across the country. To start with, approximately 102 people were killed in the year 2015. These were unarmed African Americans where two were killed every week. One victim in every three people who were killed was unarmed. However, the number could be higher due to the increased cases of underreporting
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by police involved in the cases. Secondly, black people who were killed in the year represented 37% although the African American community only represents 13% of the entire US population (Mapping Police Violence, page 1). Keep in mind that some cases end up unreported. In an experiment in the field of social psychology, according to empirical data, white Americans view African American men to be violent and dangerous. In the experiment “shooter bias” was considered where “social psychologists measured how quickly participants responded to images of black and white men pictured in one of two scenarios: holding a violent object (for example, a gun) or a non-violent object (for example, a cell phone)” (Carbado and Rock, page 168). The participants were instructed to “shoot” the men holding violent objects and not the ones who were holding non-violent objects by pressing a key on a keyboard. The results of this experiment were that participants were quicker to “shoot” blacks with a gun than whites with a gun and quicker to shoot blacks without a gun than whites without one. One way to interpret these findings is that the participants had an easier time perceiving African Americans as armed whether they were or not which resulted in deadly force being used against them either way. Another research Carbado and Rock mention in their article were conducted by Sophie Trawalter and colleagues, which found evidence of the associations between race and danger. It is believed the faces of black males attract “more visual attention from white respondents than comparable faces of white men.” This was demonstrated by having both white and black faces flash in different positions on a screen. The participants were shown to have different gazes which were attracted to different areas where the black face had been on the screen (Carbado and Rock, page 168-169). The attention to these pictures was more likely to be seen in response to biologically threatening stimuli, images such as snakes and spiders which evolved for one’s ancestors’ survival and fight or flight response. The researchers interpreted it as evidence that “blacks in
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America have become so associated with danger that even viewing them has come to trigger the same kind of heightened attention and awareness people manifest in the presence of biologically threatening stimuli” (Carbado and Rock, 169). It has also been noted that although this hyperattentiveness has been demonstrated in response to angry faces, “black men attract attention even in the absence of any aggressive, angry, or threatening facial content” (Carbado and Rock, page 169). This could be a potential reason as to why police officers are more likely to deem African Americans as more suspicious or threatening. This relates to racial ideologies discussed in the course with guest lecturer Harry Barbee. He mentioned that racial ideologies such as phrenology and Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman’s body. Phrenology is a pseudoscience that explained how the shape and size of one’s skull indicated certain characteristics and mental abilities. During slavery and segregated times this was used to explain how African Americans were sub-humans, uncivilized, and inferior to white people. We can say that phrenology is not a reliable explanation anymore to African American features but it isn’t eliminated completely. For example, the documentary “Race: The Power of an Illusion Episode 1: The Difference Between Us” a white female being interviewed believed that people of color have an extra muscle in their legs to explain why they are good at sports. Police brutality should not be minimized by those who do not or have never experienced such traumatic experiences. This campaign was to bring awareness to African Americans’ interactions with people who have vowed to protect the citizens and enforce the laws within the United States by providing research and information of events where the “race card” should not be an excuse for anyone to look away and pretend that these events do not occur. They may not occur and often as the media may portray them but they do happen. Members of the public should push towards the removal of corrupted police officers who are involved in police brutality
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and violence. This is achieved through contacting the responsible police department, demanding the full identity of police officers involved in the cases. Members of the public should use social media to make petitions with the aim of rallying support towards the cause. On the other hand, we should also help the good police officers to speak out. Finally, it is the goals of every mindful citizen to vote out all legislators who condone police violence and brutality on African Americans.
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Work Cited: Carbado, Devon W. & Rock, Patrick. "What Exposes African Americans to Police Violence." Harvard CivilRights-Civil Liberties Law Review 51.1 (2016): 159-188. Staples, Robert. “White Power, Black Crime, And Racial Politics.” Black Scholar 41.1 (2011): 31-41. Education Source. Web. 11 April. 2017