Black Lives Matter And Respectability Politics – An Overview

Goals and Objectives

Discuss about the Black Lives Matter and Respectability Politics.

Black lives Matter is an organization that has received countrywide attention recently for illegally shutting down highways with their marches and making extraordinarily aggressive anti-police statements. Whilst it is far achievable that an intensive institution would shape in a country as large as America. It is very extraordinary that the U.S president might help push its dangerous agenda. The black lives count number motion commenced after the dying of Trayvon Martin and made well-known after the death of Michael brown. Each of these killings had been deemed justified through the justice machine. President Barack Obama has helped legitimize the motion. Just weeks after brown’s demise, and before he had any facts at the case, the president was already making remarks that insinuated the police had stated that something was wrong (Cohen & Jackson, 2016).

For almost two years, “Black lives matter”, a protest movement has agitated the nation.  The killing of Michael Brown in Furguson, Missouri, in August 2014 triggered the beginning of this movement. Moreover, the movement states that the biggest danger facing the young black men is the racist officers. This belief has contributed to protests, killings, and an operation to exclude old dated jury proceedings in court when officers use excessive force, and a presidential mandate on implementing policies (Powell & Kelly, 2017). Even if the U.S Justice system has tried to hide the truth that Michael Brown was killed by the police while surrendering, Michael is still considered as a Martyr. The officers are trying to abolish the proactive policing due to the relentless attention directed to them in the media and on the streets. This has led to the increase in violent crime. It is important to evaluate the Black Lives Matter movement’s critical point, that police officials are the biggest danger to black individuals. Therefore, there are two counter hypothesis that I propose. Firstly, there is no regime more focused to the aspect that black lives matter than the officers and secondly, that we have been obsessed about the mentioned cop brutality over the past two decades, so that to prevent the greater issue- black-on-black crime (Hamilton, 2016).

It is important to note that the police officers have a concise duty to treat everybody with respect and courtesy, and to act in accordance with the law. Most of the times, officers start developing an extreme, obnoxious attitude. In addition, it is normal that being commanded when you are not guilty of any unlawful act is humiliating, irritating and oftenly frightening.  Most importantly, each unlawful shooting by police officers of unarmed individual is a very disturbing tragedy (Garza, Tometi & Cullors, 2014). Referring to the subject of racism and complicity of officers in this nation, it is clear that there have been an increment of police officers killing black men. This history shows you how many individuals view the police. Therefore, there is need to properly train the police in the constitution or else there will be more threats to police with potentially dangerous force. According to Matter, the black violent crime rate shows that 26 percent of victims shot by the police are black. The usage of force by the police will happen where the officers interrelate most frequently with armed gangs, violent criminals, and those individuals resisting arrests, and especially in black dominated states. In 2009, America’s biggest states, for instance blacks consisted 60 percent of all theft respondents, 57 percent of all homicide respondents, 40 percent of all violent respondents (Obasogie & Newman, 2016).

Police Brutality and Racism

Over the last decade, 45 percent of all police killers have been black. Also, a big ratio of Hispanic and white homicide deaths have been caused by police shootings than black homicide deaths. This information will not be dispatched by the mass media or from political sympathizers of the Black Lives Matter movement. In addition, 12 % of all Hispanic and White are murdered by cops in comparison to 4 % of all black murder victims. Standard anti-cop strategy that is stipulated by the Academy or ACLU highlights that prosecution activities are discriminatory if they do not follow the populace data (White, 2016). New York town describes why that information is so misinterpreted. Moreover, blacks in New York City constitute 23 % of the total population, but they get involved in more than half of all shootings, 70 %of all burglaries and 65 % of all assault crimes. Each year, almost 6,000 blacks are killed (White, 2016). This number is Bigger than Hispanic and White murders combined, even if blacks constitute 15 % of the country’s population (Burns, 2016).

 Blacks are murdered at almost ten times the amount of Hispanics and white combined.  Blacks ranging between the ages of 20 and 24 in Los Angeles are killed at a rate20 to 30 times the country’s mean (Edwards, 2016). The increased homicide killings of blacks is because of the increased black violent crime rates. According to Baker, black men estimated between the age of 14 to 17 years commit murder at eight times more than the Hispanic and white men included. The police should stop the use of excessive force (Baker, 2016). This will have a good impact on the black deaths by murder rates.  On March 11, 2015, as demonstrators had been were meeting at the Ferguson police head office trying to fight of the whole police unit, a six-12 months-antique boy known as Marcus Johnson become killed some miles away in a St. Louis Park, he was killed because of taking pictures of the events that were happening. It is unusual that no one protested his murder. Also, Sharpton did no longer call for a federal analysis. Last year, ten kids below the age of eight were murdered in Baltimore (Bender, 2017). Also, in Cleveland, three kids between the age of two and five were murdered in September. Moreover, a young boy was murdered in Chicago during the Fourth of July weekend by a bullet which was meant for his dad. In November, a young child aged ten years was driven into a valley and murdered by his Dad’s gang members. However, the dad refused to name the culprits involved.

Excessive Use of Force

It is important to note that Hispanic shootings represent 97 % of all illicit gunfire in Town. Whites are 30 % of the city’s populace, yet they are involved in less than 3% of all murders, 4 % for petty thefts, and 5 % of all vicious wrongdoing. These information shows that that for all intents and purposes every time an officer is killed in New York during a crackdown, implies that somebody has simply been shot, therefore, the officers should be summoned (Purtle, 2015). Officers have not succeeded in finding perpetrators of white shooting suspects, but it is rarely that this happens (Mead, 2015). This frequency of wrongdoing means that blacks have a much greater possibility than the whites of being stopped by the police in light of the fact that they look as suspects. This is just an assumption that the police make. However, it is a reality constrained on them by the truths of wrongdoing.

There are large topographical disparities in different states. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, the charges for capital shooting is eighty one times better than in close by bay ridge. Blacks are the most common community in Brooklyn.  Also, the next biggest community constitutes most of white and Asian (Hooker, 2016). This has caused the police to be always present and use of extreme forces are a lot greater in Brownsville as compared to Bay ridge. Each time there is a fight, the police will move to the region to try and stop it, this is an effective way to avoid retaliatory acts of individuals. It is important to note that the police patrol Brownsville not due to discrimination but due to the fact they want to offer safety to most law-abiding residents who need security. As crime level increases, the greatest number of victims are normally black. However, cops are also suffer the same fate (Mc Donald, 2016). In August 2015, a policeman in Birmingham, Alabama, was beaten by a convicted individual after he was instructed to stop. Moreover, the suspect had snatched the officer’s gun, as Michael brown had attempted to do in Ferguson, however the officer hesitated to arrest him for fear of being accused of discrimination. Such situations will probable increase because the media is planning to make to expand the Black Lives Matter movement, their intention is to criticize the country’s police forces (Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016).

Geographical Disparities

In recent phases of economic changes, no other agency structure has been able to implement the policies. Corporations that had refrained from investing in New York City due to the increase in drugs have now settled there, therefore giving the residents a variety in shopping and also creating more job opportunities (Wilson, 2016). Older residents felt secure to visit the shops or to the administration offices to pick out up their social welfare checks. In addition, Kids felt free to ride their motorcycles on the sidewalks without being frightened that they would be killed. However, due to the false reports of the Black Lives Matter Movement, the crime rate has greatly increased since it has affected the appropriate operations of the police. Police patrolling the Cities and zones now find themselves being enclosed by cursing, and rude crowds once they make an attempt to arrest an individual (Hope, Keels & Durkee, 2016). On occasion, they are injured as bottles and rocks are thrown to them. Additionally, other individuals put their mobile phones near officers’ faces, daring them to continue with their responsibilities. This makes the police to be worried of being referred to as racists. Other individuals go to the extent of taking mobile phone video when the officers are arresting a black individual that unavoidably stops to reveal the antecedents to their use of force. Officers’ use of excessive tactics is a standard procedure, but the public does not understand the appropriate way to handle a suspect who is resisting arrest. Due to the anti-cop protests over the past years and the resulting retaliations that has been happening in the streets, officers in city centres are using the traditional form of policing that contributed to decrease in crime in the late Nineties and 2000s. This has led to decline in arrests and proceedings for low-level offenses. Moreover, Law enforcement officials delay to answer   911 calls whilst there is already an individual who is suffering. However, many cops fear that their jobs are at stake when they make individual to stop and get out of their vehicles and arresting those who hang out on drug dominated areas (Edwards, 2016).

Law enforcement officials are, after all, human but time and again they are referred to as discriminatory for stopping and questioning black individuals in regions with increased crimes regions, therefore making them to perform their duties inappropriately. This is not a comprehensible experience, it is how matters should be handled. We will get much less of Policing, if politics continue to affect the legitimacy and assertiveness of the policies. However, the individuals protesting that the police should stop the use of excessive force that the officers backtrack are by no ways helping the entire black society. Unfortunately, while police back off in excessive crime regions, crime increase rapidly (Miller & Schwartz, 2016). Our nation is facing an increase in violent crimes after a long time. Murders have risen by almost 17 percent within the kingdom’s biggest towns in 2015. This happened in states with a majority of black people where the violence increased to maximum. During that period, Baltimore’s per capital murder fee closing year was the best in it has ever recorded. In a decade, Milwaukee experienced the worst year, with a 70 % increase in homicides. Also, murders in Cleveland increased by 90% over the previous 12 months. Homicides rose by 80 % in Nashville, 55%in Washington, D.C, and 60% in Minneapolis. In Chicago, where pedestrian stops have been decreased by almost 90%, murders had been up by 80% since March 2016.

Police and Public Safety

The most common emphasis of the Black Lives Matter is that white officers should be stopped for killing black individuals. On March 2015, Justice System data at the Philadelphia police branch highlighted that black and Hispanic police have been more possibly than white officials to kill black individuals based on assumptions. This is the inappropriate perception that an individual is armed. An examination from the College of Pennsylvania criminologist Greg Ridgeway, previously acting manager of the National Institute of Justice, has discovered that black cops inside the NYPD had been 3 three times much more likely to use their weapons during shooting situations as compared to other cops present. During April 2015, in Baltimore, the killing of drug kingpin Freddie gray has aggravated the black Lives Matter narrative. This is despite the fact that the cops involved in the arrest and delivery of gray are black. It is not true that a white drug peddler in grey’s situations, with a comparable records of faking accidents, would have been handled any in another way (Perry, 2016).

Conclusion

To conclude, Black Lives Matter is an organization that supports the right of the black individuals. Moreover, it is a philosophical and political intervention approach that protects the lives of the black people. The movement also highlights the contribution of black people in the community and their resilience within the face of lethal discrimination. In recent years, the nation has made tremendous progress by solving this problems. New York and other different large states have appreciably decreased their prison populations and the juvenile justice system has decreased young people confinement and detention through by over 40%. The whole discriminatory accusations has contributed to the narrowing down of police departments in major towns. This has led to an increase in the number of various crimes. The garner case has contributed to protests by the white individuals about the injustices within that justice structure, with 45 % of whites nationwide and half in New York town mentioning that the officer must had been indicted.  Ultimately, right enforcement of   the currently reauthorized loss of life in custody reporting act can ensure accurate facts on future police use of deadly force.

References

Bender, M. (2017). Black Lives Matter. Critical Education, 8(2).

Cohen, C. J., & Jackson, S. J. (2016). Ask a Feminist: A Conversation with Cathy J. Cohen on Black Lives Matter, Feminism, and Contemporary Activism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41(4), 775-792.

Edwards, S. B. (2016). Black lives matter. ABDO.

Matter, B. L. (2015). Black Lives Matter. Accessed September, 1.

Garza, A., Tometi, O., & Cullors, P. (2014). A history of the# Black Lives Matter movement.

Thompson, A. I. (2016). Radical Rhetoric: The Mainstream Print Media’s Framing of Black Lives Matter.

Jee-Lyn García, J., & Sharif, M. Z. (2015). Black lives matter: a commentary on racism and public health. American journal of public health, 105(8), e27-e30.

Perry, E. L. (2016). Teaching History in the Age of Black Lives Matter: Embracing the Narratives of the Long Struggle for Civil Rights. American Journalism, 33(4), 465-470.

Hope, E. C., Keels, M., & Durkee, M. I. (2016). Participation in Black Lives Matter and deferred action for childhood arrivals: Modern activism among Black and Latino college students. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 203.

Miller, B., & Schwartz, J. (2016). The Intersection of Black Lives Matter and Adult Education: One Community College Initiative. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2016(150), 13-23.

Wettach, J. R., Counts-Scoggins, D., Green, M., & Watson Jr, R. (2017). Black Lives Matter in School.

Mead, J. (2015). Motion for Preliminary Injunction in Challenge to Mass Arrest of Black Lives Matter Protesters.

Hooker, J. (2016). Black Lives Matter and the Paradoxes of US Black Politics: From Democratic Sacrifice to Democratic Repair. Political Theory, 44(4), 448-469.

Purtle, J. (2015). Lives matter. Do votes? Invited commentary on “Black lives matter: Differential mortality and the racial composition of the US electorate, 1970-2004”. Social Science & Medicine, 136, 190-192.

Hoffman, L., Granger Jr, N., Vallejos, L., & Moats, M. (2016). An existential–humanistic perspective on black lives matter and contemporary protest movements. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(6), 595-611.

White, D. E. (2016). Black Intellectual Lives Matter: The Politics of Higher Education and Teaching Black Lives Matter.

Wilson, W. J. (2016). Black youths, joblessness, and the other side of ‘Black Lives Matter’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(8), 1450-1457.

Howard, T. C. (2016). Why Black lives (and minds) matter: Race, freedom schools & the quest for educational equity. The Journal of Negro Education, 85(2), 101-113.

 Powell, J., & Kelly, A. (2017). Accomplices in the academy in the age of Black Lives Matter. Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis, 6(2), 3.

Obasogie, O. K., & Newman, Z. (2016). Black Lives Matter and Respectability Politics in Local News Accounts of Officer-Involved Civilian Deaths: An Early Empirical Assessment. Wis. L. Rev., 541.

Hamilton, J. (2016). The Role of Social Media in Social Movements: The Case of Black Lives Matter (Doctoral dissertation, Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas).

Burns, R. (2016). Women and the Black Lives Matter Movement: Relevance Past to Present. Dissenting Voices, 5(1), 6.

Baker, H. A. (2016). The Black Bottom Line: Reflections on Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, and White Male Violence in America. American Literary History, 28(4), 845-853.

McDonald, J. M. (2016). Ferguson and Baltimore according to Dr. King: How Competing Interpretations of King’s Legacy Frame the Public Discourse on Black Lives Matter. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 36(2), 141-158.