In recent years, there has been a lot of attention brought to the numerous police inflicted homicides occurring in the country. Various statistics show that police officers are fatally killing African Americans at a higher rate than their White and Hispanic counterparts. This information poses a lot of questions because African Americans make up a smaller percentage of the country’s population compared to White and Hispanic people. Through the eyes of a positivist theorist, it is easy to explain why police seem to target one race more than the rest.
The positivist approach explains that society is the cause of the crimes which happens. In this approach, society and its systematic format can be viewed as the reason for the development of criminal tendencies in African Americans. In our country, the clear majority of impoverished families are of African American decent. This issue dates to the days of slavery; when enslaved Africans were brought to this country against their will to serve the White man. From this point the oppression of African Americans became what seems to be a domino effect. After slavery, the country entered a time of segregation. During segregation, African Americans were denied the same opportunities and privileges that White people weren’t. African Americans were unable to obtain the same jobs, eat at the same restaurants, and attend the same schools. Because of this, African Americans did not have much opportunity to make money to provide for their families which essentially lead to them engaging in criminal activity. They had to find a way to take care of their families even if it meant taking from others. This construction of society during that time carried over into the later years and has now become the way of the world. If one were to observe the demographics of those individuals in prison and jail, they would find that more than half of the population are African Americans.
Blacks and Hispanics are the most represented races in the prison system; this is despite them being the minorities consisting of approximately 37.4% percent of the people in the US. They form 46.6% of the unarmed and armed victims; they formed 62.75% of the victims who were unarmed and killed by the police, (Lopez, n p). Therefore, there are wide disparities among the American Justice Systems which place the minorities at the higher likelihood being murdered by law enforcement. The use of this excessive force by the police has become a significant issue in this century. In the year 2015, the police were reported to have shot approximately 1000 people in the USA. African Americans aged between 15 and 34 who are approximately 2 percent of the population formed 15 percent of these deaths, (Roland 1). Among these numbers who were shot, only 25 percent were unharmed.
There are various explanations of why African Americans are perceived as more violent and criminals. Per Victor Rios, the minority races mostly turn to crime because of the need for resistance to the racist society, (Cole n p, a). The rejection and marginalization characterize this society by the various social institutions in place. According to him, there are multiple institutions in the community such as the police, educators, and media who closely monitor these two races and vilify them as criminals even before they become one. Society tends to fail at victimizing the victim. Instead, society criminalizes African Americans through race related stereotypes. Consequently, the killing of the minorities by the police is caused by society and how it is affecting the perception of African Americans and how it affects the race.
The criminalization of African Americans begins to take place at an early age. In America, 24% of schools use metal detectors, more than half of those schools are predominantly black institutions. Non-coincidentally, it was recorded that 28% of schools conduct random dog searches, and more than half of those schools are predominantly black. Society today has a way of labeling African Americans as criminals without even committing a crime. It is a total subconscious act that has become the norm today. The labeling theory would argue that this wrong sense of criminalization of African Americans could affect the child’s perception of themselves. They will then begin to perceive them as what society has labeled them as, a criminal. For some this could eventually affect their habits. If they feel as though society sees them in a certain way already then they may conform to the label. It typically starts out with something small such as stealing something from the store, or disrespecting elders. From there things may continue to escalate into more serious crimes and eventually they may begin to accept the role of a criminal and live up to its expectations. There are some individuals who refuse to conform to the labels that society has bestowed upon them. However, no matter how hard they work to run from this label and stereotype they will always be viewed as such by society. These African Americans will constantly have to battle with the ways of the world in efforts to show who they are; which is not the stereotype.
The unfortunate label placed on African Americans are carried over into the media as well. For example, any movie depicting a predominantly black school will always portray it as ghetto and violent as possible. Making sure to put emphasis on its negatives never highlighting the positives. The media also unknowingly highlights the inequality in the treatment between African Americans and Whites. Michael Vick for instance, served 18 months in prison for dog fighting. This investigation made the headlines in the media. Michael Vick was suspended indefinitely from the NFL without pay and was labeled as a criminal. Michael Vick made a point to mention that people hunt deer as a hobby and as a sport all the time, so why was it a big deal that he was fighting dogs? This posed a lot of controversy amongst the black community. African Americans began to feel that Michael Vick was being punished solely because he was black, and that if it were a White man to fight dogs it would not be a big topic in the media.
In the 2018 film entitled The Hate You Give; viewers can see how racial profiling is one of the many issues that lead to the killing of African Americans. In this film, a young man was killed because he was wrongfully stopped by a cop who assumed that he was up to no good. When the cop was walking back to the young man’s car, the young man reached in his pocket for his hair brush and was shot by the cop who assumed that he was reaching for a weapon. Situations like the one presented in this movie are seen way too often. A testament being that the rate at which blacks get pulled over is twice as many as the rate of white Americans (Cole n p, a). Known as “driving while black”, it is the ignorant thinking of law enforcement that automatically assumes that if someone is African American then he/she must be engaging in wrongful activity. In the late-1990s, the concept of “driving while black” began getting national attention. North Carolina became the first state to mandate the collection of traffic stops data in 1999. African Americans are at a higher likelihood of being stopped while driving; these experiences lead to them developing little legitimacy to the police and thus low trust levels for them. They, therefore, consider the police to be of little assistance to them.
According to Dr. Rios, the societal institutions such as schools and families are also at fault for the development of this problem. These two institutions tend to hyper criminalize African Americans at a young age, (Cole n p, a). Once African Americans have been considered as deviant and have had contact with any criminal justice system even in instances of non-violent offenses, the law enforcers are likely to counter them with excessive force which is traditionally used for the violent offenders. No one is born with racist views or racist beliefs in their hearts. African Americans feel so strongly that racism exists because of the things that they go through. The constant unequal treatment, harassment and beating by law enforcement all contribute and support their views that racism does exist. There are some White parents and even teachers that often place a blanket over the topic of racism and try to act as if the concept does not exist. Although they may feel that this is beneficial to their children it is actual very detrimental to them and society. “Understanding how white parents teach their children about race is important because whites remain the numerical majority in the United States. What is more, they wield significant political, economic and social power. If racial equality is to be achieved, it will require white recognition that racism continues and white support of policies and initiatives designed to redress past and present racial inequities. As the primary caretakers of white children, white parents play an important role in this process” (Underhill, n p). It is important to make children and sometimes adults aware of racist acts so that a change can be made. If people continue to attempt to cover the issues, then no resolution will ever be made.
The police killings based on race affect mostly the minority communities especially African Americans. However, this is not a problem for the police, but it is a social problem which is composed of the interaction and the social structures in the society. For instance, there is institutionalized racism in the police departments and the judicial system at large which leads to different treatments for the minorities. The police and the judicial system are two entities that are needed to control and keep our country safe and fair. With these two entities running corrupt systems there is no way for our country to ever be in a good place that is conducive for all people to live in. There is also hyper-surveillance of the minorities, and there is considerable disrespect of the black men, (Cole n p, a). These factors, therefore, lead to the development of an environment which makes it difficult for the minorities to trust the police and to undermine the ability of the police to perform their duty of serving and protecting. The purpose of the police system is to protect and serve the community, but if they continue to harm people of the communities due to their race they will never get the respect that they deserve.
Due to the large number of police officers feeling as though their lives were in danger, practices such as “Stop and Frisk” were put into place. Stop and frisk is a policy that should be used because it protects the public from dangerous people, potentially dangerous situations and it also helps to deter crime. This tactic is used by officers. They stop and question people they believe have committed a crime, or fit the description of a potential suspect. Not often do police officers or judicial officials consider the psychological effects that stop-and-frisks could potentially have on victims. These days when minorities are stopped by police officers they are frightened immediately and fear for their life. This is a result of all the police killings that have been going on in the past few years. Too often, police cry out that they feel as though their lives are at risk when encountering certain people. 9 times out of 10 those people that make the officers fear for their lives are African Americans, unarmed African Americans. When people are scared, they react in whatever way comes to them first, and for police officers today that first reaction seems to always involve a gun and a bullet. Despite it all, something must be done to reconstruct the trust between police officers and the community.
Movements like Black Lives Matter have been put into place to voice the concerns of African Americans to enact change. Black Lives Matter is a movement that gained a lot of attention after the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin at his local corner store. This incident brought total outrage to the black community and from that point on they knew that they had to fight for a change. The movement conducts non-violent protests and rallies such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did to simply bring awareness to the controversial issue. Not only did law enforcement not support this movement but White people began to comment that the Black Lives Matter Movement did more harm than good and only upset officers more. It is time to stop thinking about the picture-perfect image that everyone tries to paint of our society and dig into the real issues within our community. It is said all the time that skin color is the only thing that makes people different and beneath that barrier we are all the same. Well, if we are all the same then why are there so many issues in regards to skin color?
In conclusion, the structures in the society are responsible for the shooting of the police towards the minority groups. Therefore, there should be the generation of greater attention to the condition which is faced by these groups such as joblessness and political alienations which have contributed to the marginalization of these groups of minorities. There is also a need to place more effort in reforming the institutions in places such as the police and the judicial systems which ensure that they can trust and believe in them. Thus, there will be a decrease in the number of perceived problems which they face such as racial profiling, police abuse, and racist policies.