Racial Profiling In Fruitvale Station

Fruitvale station is movie that tackles the stereotypes of racism, police- brutality and poverty all in the matter of 85 minutes. Based on a true story, the movie follows its protagonist Oscar Grant III in his final hours leading up to his death. Grant was brutally shot by police officers in Hayward California on New Year’s Day 2009. Fruitvale station depict his everyday life and centers around him and his family and the effects situations such as poverty, racism and police brutality can have on certain demographics. It also shows that sometimes all three are intertwined. The story starts off dealing with poverty. Oscar Grant has lost his job due to being repeatedly late to work. He realizes that there are implications to being unemployed. He has various obligations including a daughter and it seems a sister who he feels obliged to help out. He tries desperately to ask for his job back to no avail. Once he realizes that his former job is no longer an option, he turns towards illegal means of support. He then decides selling marijuana is not the answer and changes

Racial profiling is a serious problem as we have witnessed in the last few years in cases such as Oscars, Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland. An even more serious issue is the ability of our law enforcement to get away with such heinous crimes. Oscar was guilty of committing a crime by fighting, yes, but the officer did not know who the suspect was and assumed Oscar was involved. Once he made the assumption of Oscar’s involvement, he then proceeded to speak toward Oscar with uneasiness and prejudice. From what the film shows, there were no witnesses so the officers had no basis of arresting Oscar and his friends. They definitely did not have a reason to brutally arrest them and proceed to draw weapons. It was definitely a classic case of prejudgment, racism and law enforcements power