law enforcement

Growing Up “Innocent”

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In America, the notion of childhood innocence is fairly ingrained within our cultural imagination, but who gets that innocence is, like many things, largely dictated by race. The hypothetical child is assumed innocent of knowledge around topics like sex and violence, and the hypothetical child is also assumed White by the White social imagination. For Black children, this assumption of innocence and of childhood itself is often denied, but how it happens is altered by …

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Either the White Way or the Highway

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To understand whiteness is to understand the gap between what America says it stands for and what it actually is. Whiteness is a system of cultural norms and advantages that positions white people as the default, the “normal,” and the most protected group in society. It sets whiteness as the standard for what it means to be human and creates rules based on personal biases about how society should operate. Anything that isn’t white or …

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The Dangerous Implications of Racialized Policing

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Racial disparities and discriminatory practices targeted at people of color remain a significant and deeply concerning issue in the United States. Built on hundreds of years of entrenched racism, the U.S. continues to show how both systemic and individual acts of bias shape institutions, influence public policy, and reinforce unequal outcomes across generations of marginalized communities. These racial disparities show up across nearly every domain of life, but the criminal justice system stands out as …

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Protect and Serve Who?

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How do you feel about the police? Do you see them as people who are there to protect you from crime? Can you depend on them? This should be the standard and in some areas, it is. I’m sure you can guess as to what I will bring up. You know because it is a huge issue. You know because in 2020, George Floyd was murdered by police officers and it sparked a huge outrage …

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Age and Dehumanization

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Grayscale Photography of Three Wise Monkey Figurines by George Becker

Systematic racism can be defined as how discrimination weaves its way into policies and practices that exist within an organization or society. Racism comes in many forms, but the one area that does not often get talked about is how it can affect young black children, specifically in the context of police brutality and the judicial system. Dehumanization occurs when one is deprived of their human qualities, or subject someone to inhuman treatment and conditions. …

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Execution & Innocence

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portrait of Marcellus Williams

The 8th amendment of our Constitution clearly states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted” upon convicted criminals. However, lethal injection remains a longstanding practice in the United States and is subject to constant debate over its ethics. Throughout American history various states have grappled with the interpretation of the death penalty and ongoing debates about its moral implications. December 7th, 1982 a convicted felon, Charles …

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So What Do We Do?

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As a Black African American in today’s society, the police are my worst nightmare, and I know I speak for many other African-American young adults out there. The actions of individual officers in cases like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are completely unjustified. Holding a knee on someone’s neck for seven minutes is far from justifiable. Officers shooting through a door when no one answers, hitting Breonna Taylor, is also far from justifiable. The police …

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Stop Normalizing Black-Crime Association

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Something that has especially stuck out to me over the past few weeks has been the ideas presented in an article we read by Jennifer L. Eberhardt on ?Enduring Racial Associations African Americans, Crime, and Animal Imagery?. Within this article, she discusses the stereotypes associated with Black people in relation to crime. She also discusses how there are many factors that influence this, such as the stereotype of blacks as being hostile, dangerous, or criminals, …

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Black Children At Risk

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Children of color are at a high risk of being negatively impacted by implicit prejudices and biases. The way that people manifest their prejudiced beliefs can be dangerous to children’s ability to learn and be successful outside of the classroom. In a study done by Goff et al. (2014), children of color were much more likely to be perceived as older than they actually were. Young boys of color are then treated as older when …

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A Conversation With a Cop

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I recently met a police officer two years older than me. I started talking to him and having friendly conversation before learning that he was a cop. Naturally, upon finding out about his career, I asked him his thoughts on the current Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality. His response was “Yea, it’s a shame that it was a few bad cops. I work with hispanic people and stuff. I’m definitely not racist.” This …

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Police Misconduct: Exposed and Excused?

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I listened to the June 12, 2020 episode of the podcast It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, and what I found to be most interesting from this podcast is the matter of police unions. Whether you listen to that podcast, the So Y’all Finally Get It episode of Still Processing, or make clear observations from the news in events that are still occurring today, the point is clear and obvious that history is repeating …

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Why is black skin viewed as a weapon?

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One of the leading causes of death for young black men, is police brutality. Young black men in their mid to late 20’s have about a 1 in 1000 chance of being killed by police (source needed). For many of them they are murdered while they are unarmed and are committing no crime. However, we can see time and time again white mass shooters being taken alive in the most difficult of circumstances. Yet while …

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