As I think about the incarceration of young black men for relatively minor drug crimes, and the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, I cannot help but compare the astonishing progress that Americans have made in overcoming prejudice against gays and lesbians to the astounding lack of progress we have made in overcoming prejudice against black Americans.
It is often repeated that the reason for changes in attitudes about gays and lesbians is the process of coming out—most people in America now know a lesbian or gay family member, friend, or co-worker. On the other hand, I would dare to speculate that many—perhaps most—Americans who are not African-American do not know a boy like Trayon Martin or Jordan Davis. If you do—count yourself lucky! Our society remains divided by race and class divisions (many of them a legacy of racism) that prevent many non-black Americans from knowing a single young black man.
Most white Americans know a teen-ager or an adult who has smoked pot or tried cocaine or other drugs. Most white Americans would be outraged if a child or friend of theirs were sent to prison for years for possession of one marijuana cigarette. White middle class Americans would be storming the halls of justice if police stopped and frisked white students on college campuses and imprisoned every single one of them found with an illegal cigarette or pill. What would happen if police regularly raided fraternity parties and arrested all of those serving alcohol to minors along with all of those possessing illegal substances? A new “justice” movement would be born at once.
Yet most (not all) of those same Americans are not outraged when young black men are incarcerated for carrying a small amount of marijuana or crack cocaine on their persons.
- About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
- 5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites
- African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.
- African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet
Some white people do know about such statistics (I do), but how many of us have translated a general concern about this issue to outrage?
I don’t think most white Americans hate black Americans. But I do think that the fact that few white people know a young black man who was sent to prison for years (58.7 months = almost 5 years) and stigmatized for life for a minor drug offense allows us “not to think too much” about the gross injustices in the criminal justice system.
I cannot help but thinking that the reason the juries aquitted George Zimmerman and failed to convict Michael Dunn of murder has something to do with the fact that many of the jurors could not identify with Trayvon Martin or Jordan Davis because they did not know any boys like them. But who among us does not know an angry and fearful white man? Who among us has not heard a white male relative make racist comments?
If you don’t know any young black men, then—even without your conscious consent—your mind will probably provide you with racist stereotypes when you are confronted with a young black man in a hoodie on a dark street. The fear evoked by such stereotypes could be quelled if you thought—hey that’s just a kid like my friend’s son “Jonathan.” But if your friends don’t have any black sons named Jonathan—where will your mind go next?
And where would it go if you sat on a jury? Most of us have heard white men in our families, among our friends, or at work make racist comments. Speaking for myself, I know more than one person “like that”–and even if though I don’t agree with them, I “know” them. I also “know” that such men are not “all bad.” So what kind of a juror would I be?
I don’t have the solution for this problem. Our country passed laws to end segregation in schools and neighborhoods two generations ago. Yet segregation persists. In many ways black and white Americans still live in two different worlds.
At minimum we need to name the ways in which racial segregation is producing two different justice systems—one for blacks and a very different one for whites. And then we need to raise our voices to change it.
Carol P. Christ is looking forward to the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete which she leads through Ariadne Institute. Early bird special for the spring pilgrimage extended for those who join now. Carol can be heard on a WATER Teleconference. Carol is a founding mother in feminism and religion and women’s spirituality. Her books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.
feminismandreligion.com 
In my city, the diversity is huge, all races and walks of life living together mostly with acceptance. The stop and frisk stuff is opposed pretty much by everybody, including a new mayor, so there’s hope now to resolve some of that. But there are also plenty of blacks, and other races, who are called and serve on juries in New York, men, women, young and old. The last time I was called to jury duty, I spent most of the time in an assembly room sitting next to a very tall, young black male, and we talked all day about cabbages and kings. He was absolutely delightful and made the waiting easy to endure. He was married with young kids. I mentioned at some point in one of my comments here that I was not allowed on a jury after complaining that there could be no justice without compassion, and so was sent home at the end of the day. But my friend was assigned to a big case, which had been in the newspapers. And so we parted. I will never forget him.
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Carol, this Black woman thanks you!
:-)
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xxx
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I grew up in New York state, and although I certainly see racism here and there, I also grew up with black friends. I knew young black men in high school and none of them were criminals. I’m always shocked when I see the difference in the South. The laws and the culture are so different that sometimes it seems as though there are two Americas. I see the same hatred and fear toward Mexican immigrants. I’m afraid that they too will begin to be imprisoned for the crime of existing. Muslim Americans are vilified for their religion. I don’t understand it. I have two sons and I sent them to an urban school so that they would have friends from every walk of life. I think fear of the unknown is the biggest contributor to discrimination. I wanted my boys to be part of the whole community, not just the white part. Our country is becoming more brown and less white. I hope our children do a better job of taking care of each other than we did.
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It always hurts me to read and re-read the stats! Staggering how that works. Of course I have brothers, sons and grandsons now, who I work to keep away from the worst consequences of being black and male in America. But regularly they inform me how much I do not know. Cannot know.
I also have children, grand children and brothers of different hues and have seen first hand how the darker the skin color the more restrictions. These start when they are children. So, as I said, it hurts me to read the stats.
This is also a major part of my concern about “spiritulizing” OVER systems of oppression. The consequences of racist systems coupled with misogyny that particularly finds black men threatening cannot be removed simply by “good thoughts”.
Speaking out, standing up for and standing with those whose life changes are limited by consequence of the systemic oppressions is my only path to the divine. And not just for my own, but for all who are oppressed.
Thanks for posting Carol!
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Sigh, if you can’t know, and I can’t know x 10, what these young men’s lives really like?
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Wonderful post, Carol. And greatly needed. I am very proud of my little town of Ashland, Oregon. The director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has made it a standing policy to include at least one exceptional black drama in the repertoire each season. This year it is “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” by Lorraine Hansberry ( a white cast in a play written by a dynamic black woman). And he routinely casts black actors in traditionally “white” roles, such as the nurse in “Romeo and Juliet”, and the twins in “Comedy of Errors”. Last year black actors held leading positions in incredibly wonderful plays. And there is a strong contingent of black actors in the resident company. But I know too that this color blindness fades rapidly outside our borders. Not so long ago Oregon wouldn’t even allow Blacks to live here, let alone own property. Prejudices die so damned slowly. I feel a pervasive sadness for our country that we have not been able to step past this idiocy. We are better than that, and so are our Black brothers and sisters.
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In my intersections of race class gender and sexuality we are doing a unit on the prison industrial complex. The book we are using may interest if you haven’t seen it *race to incarcerate*… It is both a text and also a graphic comic. It really brings alive these statistics for students who haven’t thought about it and for students whose families are impacted by it. My classroom is very diverse… So *race to incarcerate * really give the students whose lives have been negatively impacted by the war on drugs a sociological framework for what’s happening and ammunition for the discussions and hopefully activism they will take. I really really appreciated your post Carol and I will be reblogging it to my students.
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Thanks for what you are doing in your class. Nice not to be a voice crying in the wilderness.
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Carol, thanks for the post. To be sure, it won’t be until this becomes a concern for the white community, and thus the white community engage in serious discourse about and confronts issues of white racism, white privilege etc. that we can begin to get on the other side the pit that divides our communities one from another.
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Yes, to which I would add white ignorance and the privilege to be ignorant…
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Thanks for tackling this subject, Carol. My brother is in a prison in California and whenever my mother and I visit him I’ve noticed that he is one of only a few white inmates. The majority of inmates are Hispanic and African-American. My racist father is horrified that his son is in prison where he is surrounded by people of color. My father told me that the people who visit the inmates are absolute scum, but that is not what my mother and I have found. They are visiting their loved ones in prison, just like us, and they’ve been kind to my disabled elderly mother. People like my father often see what they want to see. We whites have been projecting our fears and issues onto blacks since we first enslaved them. We often see them as “other” and therefore as less than us, which is how we justify abusing and even killing them. We whites need to become aware of the issues that lead to the incarceration of so many young black men, and we must work to end this sick thinking and discrimination.
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Linda thanks for your honesty and your outrage. Your father…my relatives, our history…
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Thanks, Carol, for this important post. I agree with Amina that the statistics, even if we know them, are more than sobering. And I believe you’re right that the basis for our continuing race problems is segregation. I watched a series of (TED-length) talks entitled “The Biology and Psychology of Ethical Behavior” at the website called Being Human 2013 (http://www.beinghuman.org/conference/being-human-2013?p=6) that I think are important background information to this topic. Essentially, Susan Fiske from Princeton University summarized what brain scan findings show us about prejudice. The shortest take-away from this talk is that if you don’t know anyone in a given category of people (disabled folks, homeless people, LGBTQ people, African-Americans, whites, etc.), then you’re stuck with the hard-wired “othering” in your brain. As soon as you know someone in one of those categories, their individual characteristics outweigh (probably the amygdala’s) fear-inducing influences in our brains that evolved to keep us alive.
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Thanks for the back up info.
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Without question, this goes nowhere without whites taking it up. That can be private and public. Sometimes I wonder if one of the strongest things we can do is to share experience and knowledge with family. When they learn, they share what they learn. And that keeps growing. The point that it matters who we know (and what we experience) is so important here. Nevertheless….
In a sobering moment for me, even thought I do activist work with lgbtq Muslims, I didn’t know what riding the subway queer was like. I heard their stories. I absolutely believed it. I absolutely supported them. But when I buzzed all my hair off once and rode the subway in my usual tom-boy-preppy gear, two young Eastern European men threatened me. Calling me “Dyke” tipped me off this was not just about being a woman. It wasn’t until I felt that fear and that disgust that that I *got* it. And that, folks, is pretty sad.
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indeed.
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I am in a general women’s studies class at my college and we are talking about just this…the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality (Marie Cartier in the above post). It baffles me to read stats, such as these! I cannot believe that even though whites have higher stats in all of the categories, it seems that the African Americans are always punished more. I have been to many, many fraternity parties in my years in college, and can say that your statement about them is 100% correct. Though they are fraternities that are awarded “through the college,” that does not make them any more safe and okay than a regular house party. They are drinking just as much alcohol and doing just as many drugs, if not more. I have been to several house parties that have been broken up and have bad endings, but never once have I been to a frat party that was broken up by police. It just goes to show that police pick and choose the battles they want to fight. In this case, the fraternity parties get away with way more than house parties even though I am sure that their stats of alcohol and drugs are much higher. In the case of race, whites stand as the fraternity parties, and African Americans stand as the house parties. Even though African Americans may be doing no worse than the white people that take a higher percentage of drugs, they are getting more punished for it. Thank you for the post! It is truly inspiring and makes me think a lot!
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you are so right, Nicole!
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Thank you Carol for your spot on post. I see the injustice every day in my criminal legal work here in Florida and in my personal life as well, ever since I married an African American women nearly 2 years ago.
Having come from Ohio and worked in Chicago and Oregon, I reject the perspective that issues of racial discrimination are predominantly a problem of the Southern part of the United States. Everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve come across people full of racial prejudice, and if you go into jails in New York you will find them disproportionately filled with blacks just as they are in the South and every other part of the US. Every black man I know has been stopped for “driving while black” and many have horrifying stories they can tell that go far beyond the everyday racism. There are Trayvon Martin’s and Jordan Davis’ in every state of the union.
My wife and I live in a condo in Florida that during the winter fills with “snowbirds” from the north (all white). When she first moved in with me a simple stroll around the grounds would lead to calls to the condo’s security officer who would come find us and ask us if we belonged here. The there were the assumptions that she’s a maid and wondering if she’s free to clean their place. Our black guests are often questioned and greeted suspiciously. We’ve been falsely accused of shoplifting because we went together to try on some bathing suits. And on and on and on…
My legal clients are often jailed for weeks or months for minor marijuana charges and the streets in the “hood” are constantly patrolled by undercover police who stop, especially my young black male clients, for riding their bicycles through a stop sign, having tinted windows too dark, violating the sound ordinance, etc…Any reason at all, to justify a stop and search, and if they do resist or get scared and try to run they will definitely be charged with a felony and taken to an overfilled jail where the pod community rooms are covered in mattresses. Of course that’s if they’re lucky, as sometimes they get shot and killed by the police instead. If you are not familiar with Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” I highly recommend it.
We all can make a difference by speaking up every time we here of a racial injustice or of someone making a racial stereotype. We must offer our perspectives and experiences to broaden the views of others.
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Nick, this makes me sick. Even you as a white man are suspected just for being with a black person. I suspect most white people don’t even have the slightest idea of the realities you describe. How can we change this?
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We are discussing this topic in my women’s studies class I am taking in school. I have often wondered why it seems as though black Americans more or less have it so hard and why, and this blog post has opened my eyes as to what it may be. I was very unaware of these statistics, and they are actually quite baffling to read. But it seems as though the problem (whether it’s morally right or wrong…) is that there aren’t enough black Americans around most areas to relate to, so people just assume the worst for whatever reason (I’m guessing the media). I was unaware of this actually. So I would like to thank you for broadening my horizons!
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N. I hope you will keep asking those questions and sharing what you learn with your friends.
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The statistics that you stated are shocking!! This is definitely a topic that I never really paid much attention too, in the past i just assumed that if a specific race had a higher percentage of incarceration rates it was because they committed more crime. But after reading the statistics that you presented I realize that specific races are simply just being sent to prison more often than others simply because of there race and class. This makes me very mad, to see that society is still treating people unequally because of their race and class. The specific intersectionalities of a person can either gain them privileges or disadvantages. The fact that blacks are serving the same time in prison for a drug offense as whites do for a violent offense makes me mad. Drug offenses are no where near as bad as violent offenses and that is why it is not fair that blacks serve the same time for a drug offense and whites do for a violent offense. Race should have nothing to do with the type of offense that you do. A violent offense should do drastically more time than a drug offense, regardless of what race you are. I appreciate this information because it opened my eyes to how society really is.
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Thanks Bianca for your honesty and for opening your mind. I think there are many white people who are not racist, but who just don’t know and go around thinking as we have been told that there is ‘freedom and justice for all” in our society. We need to break down the walls of ignorance and learn the hard truths about the injustices that masquerade as our justice system. Keep on struggling with this.
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Thanks to all of you who contributed to this conversation. As Kelly says, this is a conversation whites need to have among ourselves. How is it that we do not know about or if we know are not more outraged about the injustices in our society and penal systems? I am also grateful that this FAR space is one where black and white women and men can speak with each other and begin to know more about each other’s realities.
I didn’t respond sooner because my computer died last week and here on a Greek island you can’t just go out and buy a new one and bring in home. I now have a borrowed computer while waiting for a delivery from “the mainland.”
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The statistics you provided are not only astounding, but also horrifying. I agree with Bianca; when I heard of people from a specific race being arrested, I assumed it was because they committed the most crimes, and the stereotypes stemmed from there. But perhaps it is the other way around: almost a question similar to the chicken and egg dilemma. Many people make the assumptions you provided about young black men without real conscious thought, only based on instinct from what the media has engraved in our minds.
I, too, wish we could find a solution to this problem, that people could stop seeing the world as “black and white” (literally and figuratively) and start seeing everyone as equal. Unfortunately, changing people’s opinion and predetermined thoughts cannot happen overnight. Hopefully more people like you continue to spread the word about this inequality between the races by relaying the facts, putting things into perspective, and expressing their opinion in a way that cannot be ignored. Then hopefully this problem could be obsolete.
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Carol, this post is the information that must reach everyone living in the US. As you said the racial segregation was ended a long time ago, but I don’t think everyone understands what it is yet. The statistics are shocking, but not too surprising. By watching the television, I get scared sometimes, many TV shows and some news don’t even hide their views on African Americans. For example, the “Cops”, reality TV series, I watched many times, until it hit me that almost every “bad guy” they catch is an African American. I don’t consider it fair and the stereotypes that people are following are dictated. I’m sure if “Cops” was shown in any other country, many uneducated people would think that all African Americans are criminals. We consider our country a welcoming place for many race, but the white Americans are still holding the power. The cases you talked about in your blog are so unfair. I wish everyone understood that class and race doesn’t dictate your place in this world. US is the country with many different ethnicities, I don’t understand why African Americans have to be treated like they are treated now.
Thank you for bring it up this topic, I’m sure it will make some people change their opinion.
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Carol, this post is the information that must reach everyone living in the US. As you said the racial segregation was ended a long time ago, but I don’t think everyone understands what it is yet. The statistics are shocking, but not too surprising. By watching the television, I get scared sometimes, many TV shows and some news don’t even hide their views on African Americans. For example, the “Cops”, reality TV series, I watched many times, until it hit me that almost every “bad guy” they catch is an African American. I don’t consider it fair and the stereotypes that people are following are dictated. I’m sure if “Cops” was shown in any other country, many uneducated people would think that all African Americans are criminals. We consider our country a welcoming place for many race, but the white Americans are still holding the power. The cases you talked about in your blog are so unfair. I wish everyone understood that class and race doesn’t dictate your place in this world. US is the country with many different ethnicities, I don’t understand why African Americans have to be treated like they are treated now.
Thank you for bring it up this topic, I’m sure it will make some people change their opinion.
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Hi Carol,
I am a student at CSUN. I was born and raised here in California. So to read your reference of how “many non-black Americans [are prevented] from knowing a single young black man” to be very astonishing. I have always had some black classmates, coworkers, and friends. To think of they’re being Americans who do not know at least one black male is odd to me. Perhaps this is why when the case involving the shooting of Trayvon Martin occurred I couldn’t believe that George Zimmerman was not found guilty. Zimmerman killed that poor boy based on racial stereotyping and got away with it. In reference to the statistics you gave based on the the percentage of black in jail, was new information for me. I can’t believe blacks are charged the same amount of time for a drug offense that whites spend for a violent offense. But then again this doesn’t surprise me. I mean just look at the case where a young white teenage boy who comes from a wealthy family was able to get away with killing four innocent people. THAT IS CRAZY!!! He has been sent to rehab instead of spending time in jail. I was able to connect with your description of authorities searching students. I went to a charter high school not to far from CSUN, where we would be subjected to random searches throughout the year. These searches would sometimes include the police dogs sniffing through all of our belongings. The students always found these searches infuriating. I personally couldn’t understand why we would be subjected to these searches and wondered if they were conducted because a good portion of the students were bused in from LA. These students were primarily black and hispanic. In all I can’t help but agree with you that our justice system works differently depending on your race. We the people need to make our voices heard against this injustice in order to make a difference.
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Hi Carol,
I really enjoyed your viewpoints about the prison industrial complex and our lack of progress with Black Americans. I remember I was in my critical race theory class and the murder of Trayvon Martin happened. The injustice this poor teenager and his family received still boils my blood to this day. It amazes me that people supported George Zimmerman during the trials. He murdered a young, black boy because the stereotypes of black boys in hood is related to violence. We were discussing your post in class, and a couple students in class brought up a rule in the mall they go to where three or more people cannot walk next to each other in the mall. If you are black and you are hanging out with your black friends, security guards break the group up. They are also not allowed to wear hoods in the mall. I was amazed to hear this since the mall is located in a predominantly black populated area.
The statistics you found were very eye opening, especially to me since I am not too familiar with incarceration rates. People don’t realize that racial segregation is still happening and prejudices are dividing populations, and something needs to be done.
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Hello Carol,
I find that as I’m reading your blog I am agreeing with everything you are saying. It makes me sad that this is all true and that black men/women do not get the same justice. Recently in one of my GWS classes we were having a conversation on how different races get different discriminations. A black female student then began telling us about a mall here in California were you cannot walk in a group of three or more people. Also that she was told to take her beanie of her head because I guess she looked like a gang banger or something. You do not see that happening with other races. Also what I find upsetting is that these young men being sent to jail for minimal reasons are doing so much time. While we see celebrities getting away with larger amounts of drugs or driving while under the influence and hitting someone but they do not go to jail. They get the luxury of being sent off to rehab. Why do we not treat everyone the same. A big importance in the matter is race and class. If you are not white and you are poor you will be sent off to do your time. If you are a black male that is poor you will do even more time for any “crime” you have committed. Even worse when someone commits crime towards black males the person will get away with it in the case of Trayvon Martin.
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I am always astonished and disappointed to know that many whites remain unaware of their privilege. Many choose to deny it and hide under “color blind” ideals. It is impossible not to see color, and choosing to ignore it leads to greater social inequality. On the other hand, many choose to see color and hold very detrimental views of the non-white population. I find that many individuals still believe in the “American Dream”; the ideal that anyone can make it if they try hard enough. I strongly believe that this is the root of many racist attitudes.
As a womyn of color that grew up, and currently resides, in South LA the school to prison pipeline is my everyday reality. I can also attest that segregation has not ended. In Los Angeles our communities are segregated; we live in ethnic enclaves. Our men of color are harassed and dogged if they step into “white stores.” I live close to Leimert Park and I know more than one Black male that refuses to shop at stores like Trader Joes or Sprouts in Culver CIty (our neighboring “white city”). It is heartbreaking to know that they would rather wait in a car while I shop than get harassed in the store.
I truly believe that our society needs to “know” more Black men, but, I don’t think that is the solution to our incarceration crisis. We must know the individual past the surface, it does not suffice to know a Trayvon by name. In South LA many Latin@s know a Trayvon by name or face, yet, they still employ racist attitudes towards them. What needs to happen is a coalition across socioeconomic status; a coalition across similar characteristics. It is not solely Latin@s and Blacks that constitute the majority of the inmate population, it is impoverished Latin@s and Blacks. Our battle must begin by making individual’s aware of our realities; we must document our struggles (e.g. education gaps, income games) and present them to the world.
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As a young African American male. Those statistics scare me because honestly those statistics have other young African American makes in them. I agree with you on the fact that white and black live in different worlds, this is not hard to see because it’s so evident in the media. They say it’s a land of opportunity, but in reality if your skin is dark than your opportunity is very hard to come by. This was a great post and it actually hit home. Thank you
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Everytime tragedies like this are brought up it angers me. Being African American, born and raised in Oakland, California I hear and see things like this all the time. Its crazy to know that a whole population is being targeted by others and also a being trapped by a system. Someone being targeted because of their skin color, what they are wearing and class is insane. It goes to show how much our world and people need improvement. People need to stop ignoring and understand that racism is still happening til this day by others due to stereotypes and other reasons. The points you have made and statistics puts everything into play . It goes to show how race plays a huge part in everything from how one is looked at to how one is treated. Its crazy to know that a White person can do the same crime as an African American but the African American is going to get a worse punishment. The last statement you made about how there is two different systems for African Americans and Whites is definitly true. I feel like the system for African Americans is to keep,belittle and restrain them from moving foward. I agree we as people must voice our opinion and change this.
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I can agree with every point made in this article. This issue has been a concern of mine since I became a teenager, and witnessed my African-American friends and some who were just acquaintances being either murdered or sent to jail for long period of times are imprisoned over and over again or even just placed in handcuffs for being around more than two other African-American males. I’ve witnessed a group of males, people I know stand in front of their home, talking and laughing and just enjoying the weather, and they were stopped by the police for routine checks. I couldn’t understand why, they were just hanging out enjoying one another’s company, but the police find a crime in it. The look on their faces were as if they were use to it, angry, but use to it, and my look was of confusion and anger. I was too a family member, or a friend, who would be enjoying there company as well,probably visiting, but as a female, I was told by the police to walk away, every time, I’m told to just walk away. I wasn’t walking away though. As a teenager, that is the moment I realized, something was right and something needed to be done about this. I didn’t understand how they could target a certain race of people, just because of their look, what community they live in and their race, and they assume because that person is female or of another race, that they are ok, so just walk away. Those experiences were disheartening. Watching these young men get harassed and go through the court system, all the money wasted or time spent fighting cases, just to have it thrown out. Or, in some instances the young men going to jail or prison for the rest of their lives or rest of their young adult life over crimes that they could be innocent of (just cannot afford a great attorney) or charges that other people of other ethnicities would get little to no time for. It amazes me at the differences.
This article is necessary because it offers a solution, that I never really explored. These reasonings behind these issues could be that people do know or cannot relate to the African-American male, because they hardly know any. Most often we are divided. When George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in response to murdering Trayvon Martin, I couldn’t understand. The first thing I thought, was he murdered a child, and they released him. If the races had been different, I know the outcome of the case would have been different. All he had were skittles and an Arizona, no weapon. He was harassed by a grown man with a gun, and he was acquitted. It just doesn’t add up, but because these child fit the description of wearing stereotypical clothing a dark hoodie, and because of his race, he had to be looked at as gangster. That just disgust me, that people could care less about a child’s life that they wouldn’t even really analyze the matter, they were focused on the wrong matters.
In my eyes people don’t want to relate sometimes, because they are happy in their bubble, their state of normalcy.
In regards to the situation of Zimmerman, I can’t believe a man was acquitted that even after the situation, he continued to do things violent things to other people. Throughout the case he didn’t even seem like he had a compassion for the murder. If a person did they did to “protect” them self, you would still feel some sort of emotion about murdering person, and he seem to care more about not going to jail than anything. Hence, all the crazy things he his dandy gun have done after the acquittal.
I believe the color of someone skin, their class, and dress can really cause fear or really showcase how they will respond to you, because of previous conceived stereotypes.
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This was very informational not a lot of people know this. As a African American women it is very sad to see how black men are treat. If you have a baby and its a black boy then he is always judge even as a baby there are already assumption that he will grow up to be in gangs, go to jail, sell drugs and other. You never see America uplift black males other then if they are in sports, music, or any other entertainment. I found this to be sad even on tv they don’t shoe black males as lawyers, doctors, something in a high paying career. I don’t think its far that at this year whites are still being treated better than other races. Black still don’t have the same justice as white does. Let it would had been a white boy that was shot by a black male not matter what the white boy was assumed of doing the black male would had go life or probably even worst but why does color is still making a different in justice and how people are being treated
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