Justifiable Inequality Chapter Summary

We all tend to judge someone that has something different about them. Racial profiling can be unfair and unreasonable. It has been with us since slavery, but people have been ignoring the issue. This has become one of the biggest controversy in the world. Many individuals have been humiliated and scared off by cops.

Many minorities in the United States have continued to complain about being treated more harshly than whites and the Department of Justice believes that racial profiling and police discrimination will continue to be a big problem. Critics of policing say that police officers discriminate against minorities because they see them as second-class citizens, stating that many officers are white and drawn from some conservative section of the community. Predisposition, preformed opinions about groups of individuals that may lead to racist attitudes within the police, and socialization are major roles in the formation of racist attitudes within policing. Socialization is the influences of parents, families, peers, and the community in training individuals about the norms, rules, and customs of a locality with an aim to compel

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.

Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen” focuses on race through different stories and experiences. Racial profiling in particular is detailed on page 107 of the book. Many people have been and continue to be racially profiled by the police, with minority groups being the most profiled. Racial profiling does not take into consideration that a person might be innocent but instead focuses on skin color as a way of trying to catch criminals. Racial profiling of innocent individuals takes a toll on their psyche and makes them believe that no matter what they do, they will be deemed guilty until they can prove they are innocent.

Police Brutality: The Spawn of Racism Police Brutality is one of America's most talked about and highly publicized problems today, that is not only the result of the main cause of Institutional Racism but is also due the lack of accountability that police officers face after the crime of police brutality is committed primarily towards minority groups. In order to identify the causes of police brutality we have to understand what police brutality is, the definition of Police brutality is “the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians” Law Dictionary: What Is Police Brutality? . Institutional Racism as described by The Oxford dictionary as “Racial discrimination that has become established as normal behaviour

Hate Crime is a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” If an African American commits the same crime as an Caucasian it is more likely for the black person to be charged and arrested due to the racial issues we have today. There are many pros and cons towards the issue of racial crime, but hate crime is still a very difficult issue for our country to overcome. In order to overcome the issue of hate crime it would require changing legislation, public and police attitudes. A greater population of blacks live in condensed civil areas than whites. Dense urban areas are more policed than suburban or rural areas.

From slavery in the 1700s to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the subject of race has been a paramount issue in American culture and politics. In the world of today, however, racism and racial bias have begun to take new forms. The violent hate crimes of the past have been replaced by racial discrimination and bias. While bias affects many aspects of one’s daily life, experiences dictated by racial bias cause much more harm than the bias of a historian in his writings or a newscaster in her reporting. Furthermore, the problem does not conclude with one specific group experiencing hate; countless other ethnicities are victim to these abhorrent experiences, specifically Arab/Muslim-Americans.

I happen to agree with many of the critics James and Davis have on Anderson’s theory. I think without trying to be ignorant, Anderson places certain “social expectations ” on black culture and what she believes causes separation in our society. As Davis does point out, she puts an emphasis on the way people dress and gang related activity as what society depicts as the “norm”. However, I believe these things don’t have ties to any particular culture. In fact, I think Anderson is uninformed due to some of the concussions she comes up with.

The reason for this is because blacks come in contact more with the police than whites. Once again, racial discrimination and profiling, the minority vs. majority context and the different types of contact that African Americans have with police all tie together. Whites distinguish racial discrimination differently compared to blacks which leads to aggressive force used because in their opinion they’re doing their job and blacks from low class black minorities are commonly targeted because of racial profiling. Race, ethnicity, and social class are all issues that result in police

To know that there are people in this world that will discriminate someone because of race is horrifying. Also the fact that many of the people hurting others are based on this are people from my own race, pains me even more. Racism is a significant issue to me because I cannot imagine the amount of suffering that people of color undergo by being alive. Although there has been improvements on social inequality and racism have been made, there is still so much more influence that has to be made on the world. We are not just making laws or regulations, we have to change complete mindsets of