Morality and Politics of Justice
Project 1
Project Description
This project was based on our Morality and Politics of Justice curriculum. Overall we learned about the different political ideologies there are and the morals behind them, why the philosophers believe what they believe and what exactly it is that they believe. These philosophies included, liberalism and conservatism, Deontology, libertarianism, John Rawls’ Justice as Fairness, and Utilitarianism. After many weeks of reading Sandel’s “justice what's the right thing to do” which allowed us to analyze and discuss the most common ideologies, we were equipped for our writing and argumentative portion of the project. Some of what I learned about liberals is that they believe in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all. It is the duty of the government to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. They tend to believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Whereas republicans believe that each person is responsible for their own place within society. The party believes that the government’s role is to enable the people to secure the benefits of society for themselves, their families, and for those who are unable to do so for themselves. Republicans believe in limiting the Government’s intervention in the work of the individual towards prosperity. The government should only intervene when society cannot function at the level of the individual. As for utilitarians, The belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility. The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. And finally egalitarians are assertive, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, economic, or social life. For the execution of all these ideologies was the writing portion of the project, we had to chose a political issue currently occurring in the states. I decided to base my project on police brutality towards African Americans, and my research question was “is police brutality towards african americans based on racism?” The writing portions were split into 3 different parts, part 1 was an explanation why I chose this topic. Part 2 was the pro side of my argument and part 3 was the con side of my research question.
Writing Growth
Most of my arguments were supported by articles from the Washington Post and Vox which are very reliable sources. Well, I made a lot of modifications to my papers way more than I enjoyed. Most of the errors I had to correct were grammatical errors. I couldn't have done it on my own of course I had to go through a few corrections from my classmates and even after those modifications my teacher had me fix my writing to make it more concise. I also had to be sure to word my work correctly in order to avoid making broad accusations and assumptions. I had to reorganize my work a lot in order to fix the way I had quoted certain articles of information (believe me this is important) especially when it came to quotes I had to be articulate. I did also have to delete some run on sentences. Also, another important part of writing which I had to learn and do is work citations.
Personal Growth and Perspective
The most complex part about my project was coming up with a solution to the problem. I mean how do we solve police brutality, right? To tackle this issue I interviewed a number of people to get their perspective on the issue or their idea of solution. Most of the common suggestions were that police officers should wear body cameras or that in african american communities most of the police force should be be black in order to make people feel safe and comfortable in their areas. In my opinion there is no middle ground on this issue; I believe that racism is the cause of police brutality and always has been. This isn't exactly something that came up recently it's been going on for years,and so I think it's simply biases held against people of color. And after doing all my research and analytical thinking my stands on this issue remains the same.
Part 1
Is Racism Responsible For Police Brutality Towards African Americans?
YES racism is responsible for police brutality towards black people in America .The first time I was exposed to or had knowledge of police brutality towards black people was from social media and I thought maybe it was just a few cases but then as time went by the problem seemed to be getting even worse and more cases were open to the public eye. An article in vox says “In his last few seconds of life, Alton Sterling seemed completely immobile. Two Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers had pinned him to the floor, flat on his back. But even as Sterling seemed completely unable to move, one of the police officers yelled, "He’s got a gun!" Within seconds, an officer shot Sterling, who was still pinned to the ground by the cops. Sterling died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to an autopsy.”
My connection with this is that I am a black person who faces a world that discriminates against my skin color. I believe police brutality is a huge issue that affects innocent black people everyday and is not taken seriously because the assumption is that black people probably call this upon themselves and that they are violent in nature. This is not true,if i recall history well, black people have had large injustices done to them by people with big guns and undefiable laws.
This perception of African Americans that they are violent criminals has led to Institutionalized racism towards blacks in America. Many shootings of innocent civilians in black communities has left many unjustified murders to occur, excuses given by police officers being “he looked like he had a gun”. It’s racist to assume that because a lot of black people have guns “that” this one probably does. After the Civil War, slave owners were given reparations by the government: What an inconvenience to have to let someone have human rights!
The reason this is so personal to me is because I have spoken to people that dismiss racism and oppression as if it never existed or it does not. Once I spoke to someone who told me that they think “it's encouraging racism to say black lives matter. Why can't all lives matter?” Well, as Macklemore (a rapper) once said,”the fire department does not send firefighters to pour water over all the houses in the neighborhood near the fire but only pour water on all the burning houses”, if “all lives” really mattered there would be no need to prove that one life should be as equally important as the other.
This type of ignorance is the reason why privileged people should get a glimpse of reality and at least have some knowledge of the controversial emotions and reactions that diversity has brought to the world we live in today. Police brutality is a huge injustice that should be acknowledged and fought against. This is a symptom of racism because what does being American mean? to be American means to be white, every other race has to be post -American, {Native,African,Hispanic etc}.So that's why it's important to make people see where my long line of heritage comes from and why I’m strong and stand up for what I think is morally right.
Part 2
Is Racism Responsible For Police Brutality Towards African Americans?
In most cases when caught in a situation where they end up shooting an innocent African-American civilian, police officers often use the excuse that sounds something like , “I thought he had or was getting a gun”. However, this excuse does not acknowledge why a police officer is more likely to think a black man has a gun on him than a white man and thus ignores the inherent racism toward black people in our society. Thus, in order to ensure equality in our justice system, we must work toward eradicating racism among law enforcement agents. Everyone deserves an equal opportunity and treatment.
This perception of every black person being a gangster is wrong because according to the statistics in a Vox article, 31 percent of whites own guns, and white men make up a much larger share of that than white women (Lowrey).
Another way to look at the statistics presented is to think about how the population of all Americans compares to the population of Americans who own guns: Only 32% of Americans are white men. But white males make up 61 percent of gun owners. So in actual fact there are less black people with guns than white people. And 15% of Black and Hispanic people own guns in America, but they are discriminated against the most as they are perceived to be violent people that will always oppose authority. 54% of the white households in America do not own guns and 81% of black households in America are gunless.
This just goes to prove that a problem is here and a huge injustice that is overlooked and thought to be propaganda is causing so much death for people of color. Former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee ®, said during an interview with Fox news “If we have a shooting, we end up assuming that it had to be racial.” Here, Governor Huckabee argues that national concerns about police killings of black men are overblown. Such ignorance about this issue goes to prove that not everyone takes this seriously. According to an article in the Washington Post Black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers And, when considering shootings confined within a single race, a black person shot and killed by police is more likely to have been unarmed than a white person.
About 13 percent of all black people who have been fatally shot by police since January 2015 were unarmed, compared with 7 percent of all white people. According to FBI numbers from 2014, about 90 percent of black homicide victims were killed by other black people. The “white-on-white” murder rate that same year — homicides in which a white person was killed by another white person — was 82 percent of all murders of white people. So it cannot be assumed that black people are more violent than white people and therefore they call for brutality towards them ( Lowery). A 2015 study by a University of California at Davis researcher concluded there was “no relationship” between crime rates by race and racial bias in police killings. A report released last week by the Center for Policing Equity, which reviewed arrest and use-of-force data from 12 police departments, concluded that black residents were more often targeted for use of police force than white residents, even when adjusting for whether the person was a violent criminal.
There is more than enough evidence supporting the thesis that police brutality towards black people is based on their race. Samuel Sinyangwe, a data analyst and activist with Campaign Zero a policy-oriented activist collective associated with the Black Lives Matter protest movement told the Huffington Post in December, “We’ve been hearing these arguments going around without any data or any evidence from folks who are saying that police are killing so many people particularly black people because they say black people are in high-crime communities and potentially involved in criminal activity,” (Lowery). Analyze this data.
According to an article in the Washington Post of the most recent census data, there are nearly 160 million more white people in America than there are black people. White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African-Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population (Lowrey).
Police officers are targeting black communities with more violence purposely based on race biases. More black people are likely to be killed by police officers and actually are compared to the number of white people that are killed by police officers. This goes to show how racist and biased most police departments are against black people.
Part 3
Is Racism Responsible For Police Brutality Towards African Americans?
In terms of actual numbers and statistics more white people are killed in shootings with police officers than black people.Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) said Saturday during an interview with Fox News, “When in fact, as we know … more white people have been shot by police officers this year than minorities,” he said. Huckabee is not factually incorrect. In 2015, The Washington Post launched a real-time database to track fatal police shootings, and the project continues this year. 1,502 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. Of them, 732 were white, and 381 were black and 382 were of another or unknown race.So according to the statistics the police shootings and brutality can not be blamed on biases of race.
An article on snopes.com statesthat it is false to assume that “overall, black Americans are several times more likely to be killed in police shootings than white Americans ” (Palmer). According to Fatal Encounters, the database created by former Reno News & Review editor and journalism instructor Burghart (which tracks all deaths resulting from interactions with police), a total of 1,388 people were killed by police in 2015, 318 (23%) of them black, and 560 (40%) of them white. So roughly 23 percent of those killed by any police interaction in 2015 were black and just over 40 percent were white.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) said Saturday during an interview with Fox News Huckabee appears to have cited the Post’s findings that of the 990 people shot in 2015, 948 people were male, 494 were white and 258 were black. So using raw numbers, Huckabee’s claim is accurate. More white people have faced more brutality at the hands of authority than black people.
According to an article in Vox a study about gun owners in America showed that white males make up 61 percent of gun owners and black people make up 15%. So in actuality there are less black people with guns than white people. So this would mean that police officers would hold more of a bias on race with white people than black people. This is because at an interaction scene between a white male and police officers there is likely to be a crossfire between the white male and police officers as it is assumed that he has a gun. One would THINK but are police officers educated on this fact? And simply because that is the reality does not mean that police officers don’t still hold those biases/prejudices that override the “facts”.
The FBI’s homicide statistics, rallying murders for the 28 years between 1980 and 2008, don’t lie. An overwhelming majority of homicides were carried out by white people, against other white people. Even though the ratio of black homicides against black victims is greater, the number of white murderers far exceeds the number of black murderers Robert Gibson.This is evidence that can be used to argue that white people are more violent than black people so police officers are more prone to acting brutal towards white people than black people.
White people are the largest demographic in the United States, and as a result, commit more crimes than any other race, largely against other white people. 2010 crime statistics from the FBI confirm that whites lead blacks by 2:1 in arrests, and lead all other ethnicities by 2-1 in incidents of forcible rape (66.3 percent of rapes were committed by whites, while 31 percent were committed by blacks). White people also lead black people by 2:1 in larceny/theft: 64.8 percent of thieves are white, while only 31.9 percent of thieves are black.(“5 facts that shatter the myth of black on black crime” C Robert Gibson). In actual fact more white people have encounters with the police or police force more than any other race of people especially black people so they bear more chances of battling police brutality compared to black people.
A Libertarian would say that police officers have the right to defend themselves and due to the statistic of white people are more violent than black people they see fit to defend themselves.
Work Citations:
FBI. "Table 43." FBI. FBI, 03 Aug. 2011. Web. 26 Oct.
2016.https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/table-
43
Gibson, C. Robert. "5 Facts That Shatter the Myth of 'Black-on-Black' Crime." U.S.
Uncut. U.S Uncut, 29 Dec. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.
http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/black-on-black-crime/
Palma, Bethania. "Do Police Kill More Whites Than Blacks?" Snopes. Snopes, 22 Sept. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.http://www.snopes.com/do-police-kill-more-whites-than-blacks/
"Aren't More White People than Black People Killed by Police? Yes, but No." Washington Post. Ed. Wesley Lowery. The Washington Post, 11 July 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.9432b9917923>.
Lind, Dara. "Who Owns Guns in America? White Men, Mostly." Vox. Vox Media Inc, 04 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. <http://www.vox.com/2015/12/4/9849524/gun-race-statistics>
"Aren't More White People than Black People Killed by Police? Yes, but No." Washington Post. Ed. Wesley Lowery. The Washington Post, 11 July 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people-killed-by-police-yes-but-no/?utm_term=.9432b9917923>.
Lind, Dara. "Who Owns Guns in America? White Men, Mostly." Vox. Vox Media Inc, 04 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. <http://www.vox.com/2015/12/4/9849524/gun-race-statistics>
Ross, Cody T. "A Multi-Level Bayesian Analysis of Racial Bias in Police Shootings at the County-Level in the United States, 2011–2014." PLOS ONE:. PLOS, 05 Nov. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141854#sec005
Part 4
Video: