Summary: The Next Civil Rights Movement

Our individual characteristics and traits are what initiates change and drives society, yet in our society in which individuality doesn’t seem to exist these days. where is an individualist is something what we call an outcast or not normal. In two articles by Kenji Yoshino "Preface" and "The New Civil Rights Movement", Yoshino discusses how he believes that people “cover” or hide their real identity so they will fit into the so called “norms” of our society. Yoshino supports his argument by ethos, he also uses his own personal experiences, he also uses pathos, and he uses examples, facts and data to get his point across. It is this individuality that fuel society and is present in every aspect of it. Culture, a significant part of society,

Living in the information age, the prevalence and awareness towards social problems are able to receive more access than ever before. We always hear the term Social Problems being thrown around habitually in the 21st century, but the term Social problem is defined as “A general cause that motivates activists and social movement organizations to address a particular troubling condition”. (CITE). The current world has too many social problems to name off in under 5 pages so for this paper I would like to focus on perhaps the most prevalent one that we are seeing way too often these days. Police Brutality and racial profiling. As a white male, someone who is a criminal justice major in hopes of eventually becoming some type of law enforcement for my career later in life, you may ask why I even care about this issue since it isn’t necessarily affecting my life directly. My response is simple, I am tired of seeing the hashtags behind these deaths and one death from police brutality is already too many.

Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians ("What Is Police Brutality?"). Recently, there have been a surplus of incidents involving police brutality. Cases like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice are examples of police brutality. All three of these victims ended up dead at the hands of police. Statistics show that, just this year alone, 1,013 Americans have been killed by cops (Cop Crisis). Social media has made it remarkably easy for cases like these to gain and raise awareness. Many hashtags and movements have begun because of the new-found awareness about police brutality. The public is finally recognizing it as a problem and movements are trying to remedy the system. Unfortunately, police brutality is not easy to fix. Some suggest we need to institute several laws, others think we need to get to the root of the problem and revamp the way police officers are trained.

The shooting of sparked a nation-wide movement not only demanding justice for Mike Brown, but also protesting the racial discrimination deeply embedded in the criminal justice system as well as various institutions in the larger American society. Furthermore, jfdkjfjdakljk something about international recognition. Similar protests and riots have been springing up in other cities since 1960s, and police killings of unarmed black men happen once every 28 hours (Kahle, 2014). However, Michael Brown’s killing has led to the most sustained uprising against police violence in at least two decades, centered among the African American residents of Ferguson, and has rallied significant nationwide support as well as international attention (Kahle, 2014; Taylor, 2014). The killing of Michael Brown is by no means an isolated event, and presence of racial tensions, especially in the St. Louis area, was already present long before. The large-scale pushback that the killing of Michael Brown has set in motion, then, seems to have been the last straw, prompting the eruption of decades of pent up frustration at a racist and oppressive system. That being said, what are the previous straws that have slowly pushed the black community in Ferguson to the breaking point? What are the factors that have caused these tensions to boil over and erupt into such a large-scale upheaval? This paper will explore some of the

It has been documented and filmed that many rioters have demanded the streets to riot recent fatal police brutality of unarmed African American teenagers, but what has caused the most publicity is how these incidents spread so widely through social media. The article Ferguson: Digital Protest, Hashtag Ethnography, and the Racial Politics of Social Media in the United States by Yarimar Bonilla & Jonathan Rosa studies the affects social media has on a modern political issue and explains how “hashtag activism” can unite a group of people globally. The controversy the article presents is whether social media can be considered a platform for police brutality, and on a greater outlook, “activism”. It concludes that reports on the shooting, the

On August 9th 2014, an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A day following Brown’ s death, a riot broke out in Ferguson which caught the attention of the entire country. The fact that black people suffers disproportionally from police violence isn’ t uncommon given that deadly use of force by the police towards blacks under 21 years of age is 20% compared to 8.7% to whites (Johnson et al., 2014). Perhaps what is surprising is the speed of organization and the intensity of young people in Ferguson to use the death of Michael Brown as a final straw in the injustice and racism blacks suffers to this day. For this paper, I shall analyze the Ferguson riot under the #BlackLivesMatter

During 2013 the police force attempted to fight through the hatred of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ group. While not every person in this movement hated police and the ‘oppressive white man’, just as not all whites hated blacks during Reconstruction, many of them sought after their right to ‘peacefully’ protest against police forces around the US by physically assaulting police of all colors and acting out against the safety laws, put in place for everyone’s protection, by walking around with solid black BB guns and pointing them at the men and women who are trying to uphold the law and safety of all citizens. This event lead to many deaths on both the polices and black persons’ sides and an uproar of fights within families and friendships over ‘who’s side is right.’ In the end, this movement fell to the back burner of national news as the talk of president Trump’s immigration policies and ‘wall’ came to focus and has been the ‘race talk’ to recent days.

Although, there is no more segregation in the United States many African-Americans still face racial inequality in their lives today. African Americans still face inequality in the workplace, job opportunities, and the school system. According to Renee Stepkler and the Pew Research center they found many differences in their 2016 research survey between black Americans and white, Americans on how they view the state of race relations and racial equality currently in their lives( Stepkler, R. 2016). The Pew Research survey states about 88% of African Americans believes more changes are needed to address the achievement of racial equality. The white population about 38% says the changes that are necessary have been already changed. The number

Police have brutally demanded a system wide solution to help our local communities notice that “we matter” (Kelsh, “Police Interaction”). Whenever an Officer is abusing his/her power during an arrest or simply using racial slurs are considered police brutally. This matter shouldn’t be tolerated by the government, but surely has been for many past generations. Police brutally harm our local communities and cause emotional distress towards individuals. The embracement of the black community seems to be the current situation in society different race or cultures are seen as more acceptable, even though, they are minorities. #BlackLivesMatter addresses all the marginalization of different Black culture in our local communities (Langford, “#BlackLivesMatter”).

These men were unarmed and objected to their rights as citizens being violated by the very group of people sworn to protect it. A study conducted by Florida State University researchers concludede that mostly white male police officers were more likely to let unarmed white suspects go, while opting to use fatal force with unarm black suspects (E. Ashby Plant and B. Michelle Peruche, 2004). In a response to the failure to indict unarmed-black men in both Ferguson Missori and New York in 2014; twitter was ablazed with personal accounts of white individuals engaging in criminal activies but were let go or ignored by Law enforcement. Hashtag “criming while white” was born, personal accounts of how white individuals were posted on social media, dispelling the sterotype that black and brown minorities, by and large engage in more criminal in nature. This movement cast a light on the disparity between black and white individuals experience with the

Dr. King lived in a United States of America that had changed very little in its the treatment of African American citizens since the period of reconstruction after the Civil War. The Civil Rights Movement in 1963 was organized with help from King and other influential leaders. The movement struck at some of the most notable areas afflicted by racial inequality. Why We Can’t Wait centers on the pursuit of civil discourse that unfolds in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most racially segregated cities in America at the time. Each of the components of the Civil Rights Movement alone would not have so successfully innovative. It was only the sum of its parts, together, that made it so ground breaking at obtaining equal rights for all races. The

In April 28 in city of Baltimore, protestors gathered together to demand justice for Freddie Gray’s death after finding out that he died in custody of the police. Instead of equally protecting all races, police are repressing the black community. Moreover, technology has made accessible for people to record atrocities and exposed them to broad audience gaining empathy and support. Social media has been fundamental for the news to spread around the world quickly. Social media is a tool that social movements can use to increase their growth. Consequently, civil rights activists have been using the slogan “Black Lives Matters” to get awareness for the atrocities being committed against blacks. Thus, advocates have been exposing police brutally such as Freddie Gray’s death, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and many more blacks. Even though the protest led to property damage same as Huntington Beach, the government responded by implemented curfew in the city. Compare to the Huntington Beach’s approach, this is a hard approach. Even though the majority of Americans consider that Blacks protesting is extreme, the general public needs to understand that not all government policies are moral. For instance, the government supported until the end of the Civil War. For years, slavery was

In looking at the landscape of current events that relate to criminal justice, one set of events keeps coming to the forefront. These events are all connected to the Black Lives Matter movement and the increasing amount of officer-related shootings, both of suspects and the officers themselves. These recent developments have seemed to create a further racial divide in our society here in the United States. Looking back on the events of Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis, many events in Louisiana, Dallas, and most recently in Milwaukee, all these events have been racially charged. All of this brings me to the event that I would like to focus on for this current event paper, the White Lives Matter protest that took place in Houston, Texas

Racial inequality is still a problem in America, but there are ways to fight against it.

A real world agenda-setting problem is the current exposure of police brutality and the very little to no coverage of the inequalities that coexist with and accompany the reasoning behind the force. While the U.S. has had a very long history of police brutality, most of the cruelty still goes unreported; while more relevant and high profile cases seem to be creating the necessary exposure amongst media outlets. However, the brutality that is being experienced is much deeper then what the media allows to surface and be seen by the public. The killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and Michael Brown in Ferguson are two cases that have gained an immense amount of coverage by many different outlets. In regards to the Ferguson case, the media “covered pretty much all that you can cover.”