law enforcement – Contemporary Racism

Growing Up “Innocent”

Teagan Richichi — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:48:35 +0000

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 ...

Either the White Way or the Highway

Alex Palmer — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:15:55 +0000

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 ...

The Dangerous Implications of Racialized Policing

Lily Bernecker — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:58:45 +0000

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 ...

Protect and Serve Who?

Carolina Escobar — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:45:10 +0000

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 ...

Age and Dehumanization

Comack — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 18:19:54 +0000

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. ...

Execution & Innocence

Milanis Rivas — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:27:37 +0000

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 ...

So What Do We Do?

KP5 — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 15:39:32 +0000

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 ...

Stop Normalizing Black-Crime Association

Brittany Hurlock — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 15:40:51 +0000

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, ...

Black Children At Risk

Madeleine Kemo — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 19:11:32 +0000

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 ...

A Conversation With a Cop

Madeleine Kemo — Sat, 24 Oct 2020 16:01:48 +0000

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 ...

Police Misconduct: Exposed and Excused?

Maya Illovsky — Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:18:42 +0000

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 ...

Why is black skin viewed as a weapon?

Audrey — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 17:22:53 +0000

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 ...

Kids are Still Kids No Matter their Skin Color

KarlyM — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 15:56:26 +0000

When it comes to police officers who murder young Black or brown kids, the important piece here is that the children themselves were performing harmless acts – yet those acts were seemingly threatening to a police officer. When has there ever been a White child who was sought after by a police officer for just playing in a park? These kids are just kids. Just because of the color of their skin does not immediately ...

Just Waiting For Our Friend…

caroline_whiting — Tue, 01 May 2018 11:41:39 +0000

On April 12th, two Black men were arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks. They had not placed an order; they were just sitting at a table in a public coffee shop, waiting for their friend to arrive. And an employee working at the Starbucks called the police on them. When the police asked the two Black men to leave, they did not, because it was absurd that they were being asked to leave a public store; ...

Starbucks Doesn’t Serve their Coffee Black

Maia Brint — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 18:34:15 +0000

Early last week, on April 12th, two Black men were arrested inside a Philadelphia Starbucks. The store manager had called the cops, saying there was a disturbance, that these men were refusing to leave the premises, and that she was scared. In response to the call, a group of police officers came inside the establishment, did not ask the two men any questions about their presence in the Starbucks, and immediately handcuffed them and walked ...

Not the First, Not the Last

Maia Brint — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:46:24 +0000

Stephon Clark is not the first Black man to be shot and killed for posing an imaginary threat to the nearby community. Unfortunately, he will most likely not be the last person of color to fall victim to police brutality and ignorance. The police officers claimed that Clark was facing them and seemed dangerous and like he was holding a gun. Contradictory to their statements, the autopsy report says Clark was shot from the back ...

Getting Away With It

Sarah Prince — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 20:00:40 +0000

I have scrolled through my Facebook and found far too many videos’ that capture police brutality. There are very few times I have been able to go on my Facebook feed without coming across a video that captures racism in violent acts. After which I would leave and log off of my social media. Not only has there been an increase in media coverage of these events but there has been an increase in occurrence ...

Drawing the Line

Connie — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 19:10:12 +0000

Published by an Anonymous Student This week, I learned that my hometown debuted a painted blue line in the middle of the road in front of our municipal building, which houses the library, government offices, police department, and other administrative offices. Multiple government officials posted about it on their official Facebook pages, including pictures like this one from our Committeeman. They presented their action as a tribute to fallen law enforcement officers. Under the Facebook ...