American Police History

However, when deadly force exceeds the force that is necessary to create a safe environment, it is considered police brutality.” The United States has an abhorrent history embracing racial relations. Police brutality has historically been perpetrated against individuals in lower socioeconomic levels and the social marginalized. It has been permitted against citizens who have participated in strikes during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s by spraying them down with hoses and attacking them with police dogs. This behavior has been motivated by racial stereotypes.

This method of making sure blacks are still laborers was horrible and the former slave-owners loved it.

This made the whites fear even more for African American’s taking jobs over whites. “Finally, the riots were often fueled by rumors- allegations of police brutality against blacks or allegation of black violence against whites heightened racial tensions,” (Paulson 650). On March 17, 1886, in Carrollton, Mississippi, an event really showed how whites wanted to punish African Americans who dared to stand up for their rights that been recently given to them. Even whites who showed no concern about the new laws were eventually beaten or killed. Most riots were held during the summer.

There is a group that is frequently misrepresented and discriminated within American society. That group is the black community. African Americans, though having more rights than ever before, are still greatly stereotyped through media, in a negative and an undesirable manner. When I say the words African American most people think of crime, violence, drugs and watermelon, to name a few. “Straight Outta Compton” by the N.W.A. enforces the negative stereotype of African Americans through promoting narcotics, guns, and murder.

Through history we can see how “slavery began, the factors that made it both possible and economically valuable to the European trading states, and the products produced by the slaves.” Slavery in South/Central America began with the natives doing much labor for those such as the Spanish. Planting, and tending to the crops the Spanish wished to trade. With much of the South and North Americans died out due to diseases, the U.S decided it was time to search out for a new mass number of slaves. They

African Americans feel targeted in today’s society because so many innocent African Americans are being incarcerated, shot, and killed. Since 2001, it is 6.1 times likelier to be incarcerated as a black man than a white man. This is all because of skin color. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was a group created to raise awareness for the heinous acts the have presented itself to the black community

A relevant example of this point is the derogatory icons of Black Women - Jezebel, Mammy, Aunt Jemima, Matriarch, and Welfare Queens (Roberts, 8). Each of these icons is rooted in the deep mythology that applies racial politics to black women by corrupting the reproduction process at

In the beginning, the book opened with the social, economic, and political struggle of African Americans. The experience was extremely gruesome for both the enslaved and new generation of freed slaves. As the years passed, the oppression became worse for people of color even though they were free there were several stipulations put in place to hold them back from succeeding. The University of Chicago immediately recognized the major hitches with discrimination and decided to move forward with implementing studies for social research better known as the “Chicago School”. These studies showed that although African-Americans were going through a social disadvantage.

In contrast, African rulers were able to contribute European traders with the extra enslaved people they posses. As the command increased , some Africans started to take other Africans and make profit to Europeans. When the slave ships arrived from Europe they were laden with trade goods. Captains offered gifts to local African leaders and paid taxes for the right to trade. They then began the serious business of barter exchange, offering a wide variety of trade goods such as textiles, firearms, alcohol, beads, manila's and cowries.

One can see the flaws with in slavery and this essay will further prove that slavery was negative for everyone involved. First, slavery negatively impacted the slave and slaveholders morals. Slavery could infect the kindest of people with a disease that turned them into an unfeeling and cruel master. For example “That cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; that voice, made of all sweet accord, changed to one of harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon” (Douglass 32). As seen from the quote describing

Racial profiling can cause multiple problems. Several law enforcement agencies have gone through expensive litigation over civil rights concerns. Police-citizen relations in those communities have been strained, making policing all the more challenging. Most importantly, racial profiling is unlikely to be an effective policing strategy as criminals can simply shift their activities outside the profile (e.g., if racial profiling begins with police stopping black males in their teens and twenties. The "cumulative impact of racial discrimination accounts for the special, way that blacks have of looking at and evaluating" their experiences in public encounters (Feagin, 1991:115).

An article by Kwiatkowski gives the reader a real-life account of a victim of the human trafficking in the very recent past. Southern America’s economy was built on the backs of slaves. Throughout the years following the nation’s birth, the cotton industry acted as a catalyst for the furtherment of its economic development. The crops that slaves helped plentify were able to become important commodities that gave a young nation legs to stand on in the arena of international commerce. Today, slavery and trafficking produces an estimated $32 billion in

As previously discussed, previous policies that have been enacted, such as “reasonable suspicion” has led to the growth and acceptance of stop-and-frisk. As a result of policies such as these, mass incarceration is an incredibly profitable area of our society. However, history in general has prepared our economy for such policies. Slavery was used to keep plantations running with no cost to plantation owners. When slaves began to fight back, physical cruelty was used to keep them working for little to no compensation.

Under recent events, police are being called out for racial brutality. After the killings of black people by police officers, some people are calling it an injustice and that it was race related. Today police are under high amounts of pressure are trying to do the best job that they can. Police, for the most part do not racially discriminate.

Stereotypes also play a huge role in the law enforcement. Due to stereotypes that black or latino people are more prone to commit crimes, racial profiling is common among police officers. Numerous cases of police brutality and statistics revealing a biased justice system raises concerns about the reliability of the nation 's authorities. Zillah Eisenstein connects racism to physical bodies in Beyond Borders by explaining that "racism uses the physicality of bodies to punish, to expunge, and isolate certain bodies and construct them as outsiders" (Eisenstein). Many officers tend to convict minorities more often than whites according to this same logic.