A woman holds a candle. (Photo by Stephanie Lockhart).
Erica Webb
[email protected]
When America hears Michael Brown, there is no united response. On one side, his murder was the catalyst to an inevitable civil rights revolution against police brutality. On the other, he is nothing more than another victim of his own “thug” attitude whose death inspired senseless outrage towards law enforcement. There is one fact everyone can agree on: he made history by paving the way for the Black Lives Matter movement.
As the world watched activists flock to Ferguson, Missouri to protest the police force, the Internet became a firestorm of debate over race relations with law enforcement. One of the main goals of the movement is to provide officers with accountability for their actions when they cross the lines of excessive force and racial profiling. Many privileged Americans put police on a pedestal of unquestionable authority and morale–that is the problem. This idea might be true in a perfect world, but here it endangers minorities because their claims of bias are bombarded with victim blaming before further investigation can even begin.
One year later, where do police brutality and race relations stand? What have we learned as a nation?
Protesters have sparked Department of Justice investigations into precincts that have, according to an article by the New York Times, uncovered evidence of Ferguson Police Department officers regularly allowing racial bias to affect their administration of punishment. In the report, it was found that although a third of the city is white, black citizens accounted for 93 percent of arrests. This reflects a 2014 study by the American Psychological Association that reveals officers are much more likely to see black youth as older and less innocent than their white counterparts.
According to the Black Voices subsection of Huffington Post, the media frequently treats white criminals better than black victims. For example, white mass murder suspect James Holmes is described as a “brilliant science scholar” according to Fox News, while black teenager Trayvon Martin, gunned down by his neighborhood watch for looking suspicious, is headlined as being suspended from school three times in articles by the Daily Mail and US News.
This is a pattern of privilege: when a white individual does something wrong they are seen as an individual, but when a black individual does something wrong it must be related to their race.
American police kill more people in weeks than other countries do in decades. In a study done by the Guardian, it was found that while England and Wales had 55 fatal police shootings in the last 24 years, the US has had 59 fatal police shootings in the first 24 days of 2015. Black youth are 21 times more likely to be killed than whites, yet they are more likely to be unarmed, according to a ProPublica report on data collected about police shootings in America. Black people receive longer, harsher sentences for the same crimes. Many believe these patterns will decrease once President Obama’s $75 million body-camera plan is put into place and judicial decisions are more scrutinized.
The Internet is an amazing platform for #BlackLivesMatter because it reaches millions of people to educate, petition and create reform on these issues. News organizations now look to social media for input. Statistics such as the ones discussed in the article reveal that nationally known stories like those of Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Sandra Bland have shown America, and particularly its white citizens, that racism and poor police ethics are part of a broader, systemic problem than was thought only one year ago.
Yes, all lives matter, but when it comes to justice, it is evident that some lives still matter to society more than others. To end institutionalized racism and brutality against black lives, we all must come together to amplify their voices.
