Week Eleven - Race and Policing in Modern America
Share an idea or two from this week's reading. What was most interesting to you? What was most strange? How does the reading this week fit into issues and discussions we have had in this class?
Week Two - The Emergence of Civil Rights as A National Issue in the United States
Share an idea or two from this week's reading. What was most interesting to you? What was most strange? How does the reading this week fit into issues and discussions we have had in this class?
Phoebe brings up a really interesting point about police training. This has continuously been the question in the wake of police brutality plaguing this country. The story of Garner's murder in Memphis 30 years ago is told repeatedly, and unfortunately, interchangeably by victim, around the country still today. The reality is that this tragedy can be applied to a number of young black men and women. Clarence Tyler writes in his "INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN AMERICANS, POLICE BRUTALITY, AND THE U.S. CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM" that "the police use brutality as a means of controlling the black poor and working-class population" (201). To simply put it, police brutality is another form of upholding and maintaining white supremacy.
ReplyDeleteI found this week’s topic of race and policing in America to be a particularly intriguing topic and the pieces to be just the same. In Clarence Taylor’s work he points out an important part of this issue that is growing more rampant in America today. He writes, “after release, they (African Americans) are labeled felons, and pushed into a second-class citizenship where thy are denied basic citizenship rights, such as the right to vote and sit on juries, and rendered ineligible for many housing and employment opportunities” (Taylor, 200). This aspect of the issue of race and policing is so often overlooked by Americans who focus their attention mores to the beginning of these incidents in which the controversy and violence occurs. The obstacles African Americans face to reintegrate themselves back into society after serving their time in our criminal justice system, are severe and challenging obstacles obstructing a significant portion of citizens from once again becoming valuable members of society. This is an issue worth focusing on, yet is more often than not brushed to the side to the more attention capturing issues of stopping these “criminals” from inciting violence on our streets. I appreciate that Taylor pointed out this issue so early on in his piece and believe it is one of the most significant issues that must be addressed when discussing the topic of race and policing in America.
ReplyDeleteThose that receive criminal convictions are immediately stripped of their rights even when they attempt to reintegrate into society. The known fact that there are blatant racial disparities within our criminal prosecution system only complicates the matter further. Your point that this phenomenon is overlooked because the need to preserve peace and ensure security is more pressing. This has a lot to do with our values as American citizens, we place a huge emphasis on security.
DeleteWe've seen it a lot recently when dealing with foreigners. They are portrayed as the enemies that threaten our safety. The irony is , this mentality leads to incidents of unjust racial profiling, and violence.
Part of the issue with addressing police brutality against black people is focusing too much on the small picture of the individual officers and victims. As Clarence Tyler and previous posts discuss, this is a big issue that involves the continuous processes of perpetuating white supremacy. It is necessarily related to the prison industrial complex and the disenfranchisement of black Americans. This issue is born to some extent out of the public’s desire for order, which inherently involves maintaining the structure of society. It involves punishing deviance from the norm, and that norm is not just the law, but also whiteness and its supremacy.
ReplyDeleteThe Tennessee statute under which Officer Hymon had been instructed raises perhaps the most perplexing question associated with uses of excessive force by police: why are police departments instructing their officers to play judge and jury to people that have not even been convicted of crimes? The statute in question reads: “[i]f, after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant, he either flee or forcibly resist, the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest" (Garner v. Memphis Police Department). The vaguely worded and broadly applicable nature of this statute points to structural rather than individual factors that are responsible for the epidemic of violence at the hands of police across decades.
ReplyDeleteThe statute mentioned by Anna above, deeply affected me when reading it. Before, I was unaware that the Memphis Police Department had such a statute in place, especially one that allows for unnecessary brutality to be protected under the eyes of the law. Such statutes do not create room for justice, rather it works only to allow unlawful policing to continue. There can be no growth of this country until policies such as this one are eradicated and replaced by mandates that ensure that each person will receive equal and humane treatment that honors their human rights.
DeleteHuman life is usually regarded as the most valuable and sacred right a person can possess. In our criminal justice system, prosecutors can only pursue the death penalty for defendants accused of committing the most serious and horrifying crimes known to man. However, the right to life for African Americans is obviously not valued at the same level that American society claims to value life. This injustice is evident in our policing system, which constantly leads to the death of unarmed black men and boys. These deaths should be and can be avoided: by retraining our police officers, working to eradicate police bias, etc. However, instead, police officers violate the constitutional right these men and boys have to due process, deciding them to be guilty and instantaneously delivering the "ultimate punishment" without allowing the victims to go through the criminal justice system established in our country.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested that Phoebe brought up "The War on Drugs", as many identify this Reagan Era policy, which was then supported and heavily funded by the Clinton administration, as a time in which police brutality as we know it was fed and armed. A great deal of money since the 1980s (I'm looking at you George W.) has been poured into equipping police officers with military-grade weapons and 'defense'. I'm deeply concerned with the militarization of our police force and the affect that this has on violence rates and responses to protest. Using Ferguson, MO. as an example, the way in which the police force reacted to legal and peaceful protesting by civilians was completely out of proportion and only escalated an already tense situation. I don't see much changing in the way of race and policing until we take serious steps to reduce the amount of military-grade weapons, tanks, teargas our officers have.
ReplyDeleteSomething that struck me in the Garner v. Memphis Police Department case is the way police officers respond to what they believe as impending danger. I believe that police officers often lose focus that in addition to stopping crime, they are also suppose to serve as protection for their communities. In the Garner case, I believe that the police officer’s only goal was to stop the boy and not provide protection or assistance to any possible victims. In addition, I recall from our class discussion that one possible solution is to provide police officers with non-lethal weapons, such as guns with rubber bullets. While this solution would hopefully decrease the number of wrongful deaths, I believe the racism that has plagued police departments for years needs to be addressed. We must examine the unjust ways African Americans are regarded by society, by first solving the issue of police brutality with better training and more protection for possible suspects.
ReplyDeleteIn this class, we were asked the question, what social function does mass incarceration serve? After working further on my final paper about mass incarceration in Memphis, I have concluded that because there is a large racial disparity between those incarcerated and those not, the function of it is to essentially re-enslave the black population for economic benefit. Because criminals do not have the same rights as others, it is legal to pay workers in jail below minimum wage. By creating intense drug laws and using established racial biases, the system is able to trap countless African Americans into being incarcerated, effectively creating a working class. Because many people in today's society believe that criminals shouldn't have as many rights as them, the system is allowed to perpetuate this phenomena over and over again. Michelle Alexander even calls this the "New Jim Crow," and it is. They are laws targeted a specific race, they oppress the race, and they give the "superior" race more power.
ReplyDeleteThis weeks readings and discussions enforced my feelings that all law enforcement agencies must first go through implicit bias training and must second find ways to use other means than deadly force when they are not in imminent danger. The Garner case is a perfect example of police brutality in America being spun as a "necessary means." Deadly force is almost never a "necessary mean" and it is very telling about the biases of police officers that some of the most common victims on unnecessary police brutality are African Americans. While it was not a reading for class, I wonder if the Court could have foreseen the deadly consequences that their decision in Terry v Ohio when the determined that stop and frisk was constitutional.
ReplyDeleteI remember when the protests in Ferguson erupted and feeling like I was witnessing a random outburst of anger at an isolated incident. It did not take me long to realize that this was far from the truth and I had been awfully misled. Nearly every city in America has had its landmark encounter with police brutality, and in reading Garner v. Memphis Police Department, I see a story of bloodshed that hits close to home. There is no justice in shooting a fleeing suspect, guilty or not. In this way, I feel like the issue is not a pragmatic one, where the problem can be addressed simply by adjusting a handful of policies. Rather, I feel we have a culture problem, where we need to rethink our concept of justice, from the ground up. The problem is not police specifically, and the problem is certainly not African-American males. The problem is a society which trivializes black life and denies an entire demographic group the rights of citizenry because of the color of their skin in what Michelle Alexander refers to as "an age of colorblindness."
ReplyDeleteThere is perhaps no more relevant issue that we discussed in this course than race and policing. Especially in the wake of the high profile shootings of unarmed African Americans by police, there needs to be earnest discussion about the law enforcement policy and policing in this country. The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and racial terrorism becomes blatantly apparent whenever one of these unnecessary killings happens. I think one area that needs to be improved vastly is community policing. We need to encourage the departments to assign officers to patrol in the areas they live in order to promote good civilian-police relationships.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more with Nick in his comment. Racially motivated police brutality is one of the most hot-button issues in society today, and it has been leaving an ugly mark on our nation's image. The Garner case exemplifies a precedent setting case in the legal struggle to combat against police brutality. It was a win for Americans.
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