Stereotypes And Prejudice In The Media

African Americans should not have to be scared to go outside any day thinking they might not make it home. 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

In many of the cases where the unarmed males are being killed there was always is an unclear reason why the police made contact with the suspect. From the Black Scholar Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment says, “it has been well noted in the literature and public disclosure that Blacks in America are at a greater risk of experiencing police brutality and are more likely to be stopped by police while driving than people of other races (Black Scholars, 2016). For example, the only thing we see on the news is another African American citizen being killed from being pulled over by a police officer at a traffic light. Philando Castile was pulled over because of his broken taillight. He didn’t make it out the car alive and his four-year-old daughter was in the car.

Most of the time when a teen makes a bad choice something gets broken, they screw up in class or hurt someone's feelings. Then their are kids who make a bad choice and someone gets killed. Teens should be tried as adults for felony crimes in order to rehabilitate, bring justice to the victims and to keep the streets clean of these threats. Some people can learn from their mistakes but some can not. According to “What is the Law in California?” written by the non-profit organization Campaign for Youth Justice, Proposition

Based on most local and national news stations, minorities are targeted for small crime offenses while majorities are literally blowing up the country. It is understood that the police could more effectively fight crime by targeting minor offenses (Hinkle 1). Those minor offenses are more likely done by minorities but more specifically Black Males. Raja Staggers-Hakim’s article argues the needs of Black male youth, relative to police killings, are captured, and persistent racial stereotypes that are often used to justify the extra judicial killings of unarmed African American boys and young men are challenged. His argument understands the social epidemic of police killings on the emotional and psychological well-being of Black males to put an end to police killings.

People hear of police killing innocent black men and blame them for being racist. However, after further research, I argue that their claims are not true. When it comes to police shootings, blacks aren’t the only targets. Far many more white people are killed by police which shows that this is definitely not a racial problem. Based on data collected by the FBI, crime rates have gone down but the number of police shootings have increased.

In today 's society, there is always stereotypes about juveniles not just the fact that they have committed a crime at any point of their life, indeed by the drug influence, background, or race. In an article called 'It seems that we can only be interesting if we are smoking, snorting or stabbing ', it stated, that “One stereotype of young people today is that they are all thieving, knife-carrying, troublemakers who waste most of their time dossing about”(Dominique Mitchell.) Judging them to expeditious to even realize if there was an explanation for all of this nonsense. Adults seem to exaggerate in any case as police officers can pull you off from the streets because of the way you dress. In any case, there have been news reports that indicate how people distinguish us and anticipate juveniles or non-juveniles presuming they are a threat to society.

Not only does the media have a scarcely portrayal of minorities, but when they do, they repetitively show them in a repetitive negative manner, which is how stereotypes form. For example, when Michael Nam discusses how the news chooses to depict a person in a certain manner because of that person’s race “The type of coverage that gets chosen by editorial staffs then reinforce stereotypes rather than clarifies the news. This is apparent in the different ways white subjects and black subjects are portrayed, such as black victim Michael Brown, who ‘struggled with police before the shooting,’ versus white Aurora shooter James Eagan Holmes, remembered as a ‘brilliant science student’ ”(Nam

(B). In the article Defining Black Masculinity as Cultural Property the authors illustrate that the publics portrayals of Blacks as violent are often misguided and unjustly framed. Several recent studies have confirmed that the media tend to reinforce racial stereotypes, social deviancy, and delinquency of black males. Interestingly when news about a white shooter breaks it usually leads with a gunman fires shots or a gunman kills, and after they identify the shooter he is referred to by name. Or you read 24 year old Johnny whatever has been identified as the shooter.

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.

Innocent men, women, and even children have been killed by police officers for no reason. Black lives matter, all lives matter. The Black Lives Matter movement has been expanding around the United States in the last few years. There are a huge number of people that are against the Black Lives Matter movement and say that the cops are just doing their job no matter what happens. When there is a news story about police brutality on black people, there are people that say that the cops are innocent and should not be held accountable for murder (Greene32).

The purpose of this article is to discuss how discrimination and implicit bias exist in the criminal justice system. In short, it talks about how people have a kind of “programmed” bias within themselves that they are unaware of. Even though discrimination is not accepted anymore, people still participate in it. The article discusses racial profiling, shooting- how blacks are more likely to be shot, and sentencing – how blacks have a higher chance of being convicted of murder. This text also explains how police officers are more likely to categorize blacks as criminals and they are more likely to be violent with them.

Anything but Thugs”, he discusses some of the discrepancies made between media coverage of white and black riots (Greenwald). In one paragraph he describes how crazy some of the discrepancies can actually be. “Just look at the language around Keene State "students," "youthful debauchery," "kids." Then compare to the language of Ferguson and Baltimore: "thugs," "criminals," "offenders." Or take the word, "gang."

The media tends to cover only a small number of incidents, only after they become sensationalized. The tragedy becomes sensationalized after a prof of brutality such as video goes viral on social media. However, media doesn’t forget to report on youth of color as perpetrators of violence. Nevertheless, they don’t show that youth from ten to twenty four years old are the victims of murder by law enforcement, which is nineteen times more than non Hispanic White Americans (Silverman, p. 2). Other researches capture the deadly force of law enforcement and the lives taken by their hand.