Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and his comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. In the beginning of the article, she used the existed survey reports to support and justify their purpose to perform this survey. The survey analyzed urban youth interactions with authority figures, comprising police, educators, social workers and security guards. …show more content…
The public often stereotypes low-income youth of color as uneducated, lazy, lacking good family values, unintelligent, unmotivated, etc.. However, poverty among minorities in the United States is not the result of individuals, but rather is the result of structural, social issues that contribute to the poverty. New York City has some of the worst aspects of the American city when it comes to racial issues. In New York City, people of color have being unconsciously marginalized by using various tactics to isolate them. Studies have found that more than half of black and Hispanic youths are terrified of discrimination. White supremacy is the belief that people with whiter skin are superior in this nation, which has the effect of disdaining other races/ethnics. The political policies also play a role in this problematic structural inequality. They allow privatization and deregulate the balance between the lower end of the class and the upper end. Although federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, race, and national origin, the public policies and urban developers favor the mass of the affluent class. Those who born in a poor family are less likely to overcome their low social status. Poverty is not the result of individuals, but rather it is the result of structural factors. The affluent classes are attempting to keep minorities locked into an impoverished political and economic position by using strategies such as gentrification, discrimination, and segregation. Those in position of authority use social profiling and “zero tolerance policies” as a primary tool for enforcing traditional discrimination. In theory, public space welcomes everyone. However, the power structures existed in the society demonstrate a social trend where wealthy people and caucasian move
“...Much of the recent crime increase threatens the vitality of America’s cities–and thousands of lives–it is not, in itself, the greatest danger in today’s war on cops. The greatest danger lies, rather, in the delegitimation of law and order itself’ (Mac Donald). In the book “The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe,” published in the year of 2016, author Heather Mac Donald provides credible evidence to expand on her viewpoint of our country’s current criminal crisis. In addition to “The War on Cops, Mac Donald has written two other books. Her works “Are Cops Racist?”
This book talks about how African American and Latino young men in Oakland, California are most likely to targeted by police. The author Victor M. Rios, who once was a gang member and juvenile delinquent, but turned his life around. Explains how youth of color in his hometown are harassed, profiled, watched, and disciplined at young ages by authorities. Even though they have not committed any crimes. It took him three-year study to calculate is data and present it. For this observation, Rios used 40 African American and Latino young men in Oakland.
Summary Victor Rios’ book Human Targets: Schools, Police, and the Criminalization of Latino Youth (2017) is one in which popular issues among institutions and authorities are illustrated to express the marginalization and unsupportiveness Latino youth in the U.S. is subject to. Rios presents these institutional dilemmas in his book through the experiences and research conducted over the course of five years (from 2007 to 2012). Human Targets provides its readers with both the analytical perspective of events and personal comments from individuals. The study conducted by Victor Rios focuses on a California city and the young Latinos’ interactions with police officers, as well as within schools and detention facilities.
James Queally and Joe Mozingo on the article “Feds fault San Francisco police for violence against minorities and recommend 272 reforms” explains how law enforcement is racially biased towards minorities. Queally and Mozingo support their claim by mentioning the rise of police brutality against Blacks and Latinos and describing the type slurs used when law enforcement are referring to minorities amongst their fellow colleague. The authors’ purpose is to show the reader the type of way law enforcement is unfair to people of color and different cultures. The authors write in a serious tone to those seeking to end police brutality.
The severity of racial profiling is very concerning. As proven by numerous texts studied for this Expository Writing class, it is evident that the Black respondents of Otis Johnson’s poll, analyzing citizens’ relationships with the police, are not the only Black people that: “expressed far less confidence than whites in local police to treat both races equally” (Johnson). In White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh describes various privileges which sound ordinary, though surprisingly only White people have. Among them, is one that affects all people on a daily basis: “If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race” (McIntosh). Governmental
Pre-existing beliefs of ethnic minorities from the media, police sub-culture or other micro-level influences mean that ethnic minorities are more likely to be stopped by the police than white people in an occupational culture where targeting is encouraged (see Cashmore, 2001; Bowling et al, 2008). Such targeting mandates are guided by discretion and are likely to become entrenched in the structural policies of the police. It is in such a situation that institutional racism finds its expression. Oakley (1999, p.290) defines the term as ‘the way institutions or organizations may systematically treat, or tend to treat, people differently in respect of "race"’. When such patterns of ill-treatment are repeated continuously, they take on a ‘rule-like status’ and cannot be easily disrupted (see Haney-Lopez 2000, p. 1723).
Regarding to racial profiling and the multiple perceptions that go along with it, the issue refers to the use of race as the answer in police decision making. More importantly, let’s look into the public’s perception of profiling through the classification of race, class, and personal experience. Weitzer and Tuch (2002) conducted this study to stretch this issue that has grown over the recent years and has touched based on the classifications mentioned earlier. Their major findings from surveying the respondents’ attitudes contributed towards the citizens’ hostility with the police. Basically, the classifications that were most affective to the citizens in their findings were race and personal experiences.
Introduction Disparities in social welfare has long been an issue affecting minority and structurally disadvantaged groups in America. These populations can be described as socially and economically lagging behind the majority of their other social counterparts. This state often further restricts their opportunities for advancement. Although accomplishments in increasing the economic capabilities of minority groups have led to significant progress in the social and economic welfare for disadvantaged populations, crucial issues are still not adequately addressed and the progress made is far from the goals of many social welfare organizations seeking to uplift disadvantaged populations to acquire sustainable and prosperous living. Opportunities
Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem. Golash- Boza explains, “Residential segregation happened when different groups of people are sorted into discount neighborhoods” (271). It is because of housing segregation
Throughout history, disputes and tensions between law enforcement officials and communities of minorities have endured hostility and violence between each other. Racial profiling has become a “hot topic” for researchers as well as for politicians and by now it is likely that most citizens are at least aware of the common accusations of racial bias pitted against law enforcement (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Communities of color are being discriminated against and racially profiled by white police officers for any suspicion of criminal activities. It has been widely assumed by policy makers and citizens alike that allegations of racial profiling are mostly associated with the policing practices of white officers and their treatment of racial and ethnic minorities (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Also, individuals of minority descent will certainly recognize that they are being racially profiled during a stop that is being conducted by a white police officer.
When officers receive calls, they must respond to the calls and judge how to handle each situation as they occur within these social classes. Many times the ethnicity of the person has nothing to do with the incident. Instead, the social class influences what crimes are committed. In an article “American Policing Under Fire: Misconduct and Reform,” by Ronald Weitzer, he explains how race is not the problem. Weitzer is able to illuminate how there is a correlation between poverty and crime, “an interaction between (1) high neighborhood-level poverty and unemployment, (2) residents’ involvement in illicit survival strategies […], and (3) aggressive police practices – each of which contributes to popular alienation from and avoidance of the police, if not outright hostility toward them.
Synthesis Research Paper Everyday growing up as a young black male we have a target on our back. Society was set out for black males not to succeed in life. I would always hear my dad talk about how police in his younger days would roam around the town looking for people to arrest or get into an altercation with. As a young boy growing up I couldn’t believe some of the things he said was happening. However as I got older I would frequently hear about someone getting killed by the police force.
An occurrence observed by the population of Los Angeles, California conveys the existence of racism and police brutality. According to The Polls-Trends: Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward the Police, “…three quarters of blacks, but only 38 percent of whites, continued to view police brutality as a common occurrence” (Tuch and Weitzer
Random sample surveys were conducted in Seattle, Washington by telephone, which asked citizen’s various questions concerning their feelings towards police. These questions included their level of happiness in regards to police problem-solving, their views on police hassling citizens, and if they had ever experienced, or perceived to experience racial profiling or bias by law enforcement (Wu, 2014). Of all the citizens that took part in the survey, 64% of African Americans felt that racial profiling was a problem inside their neighborhoods, 28% of Asians, 20% of whites, and 34% of Hispanics agreed (Wu,
Many times an individual desires to travel back in time to revisit a particular event. They may choose this pleasant circumstance or maybe there was an important cue in a conversation that they did not catch because the person was distracted. While we have recently made numerous technological advancements, one has not mastered time hopping. However, people are not the only ones who want to reverse time, but the government actually performs this action. Now they can press rewind, reviewing camera footage and sent text messages.