Ever since the early 1600’s prejudice and discrimination has been a big factor in this country. This all was started by the transatlantic slave trade which was the mass migration of Africans to the Caribbean, Europe, South America and to North America. Africans from Africa’s west coast were piled on in ships to the western hemisphere and Europe. The first slaves were brought to the Jamestown settlement in 1619 from the western coast of Africa. These slaves were forced to do hard labor without pay for many centuries. Ever since then, America and a majority of other countries in the world has had or maybe even still have problems with prejudice in the 21st century. Prejudice can occur between any race that is on this planet. Police brutality should be a bigger issue in this country because it is raising racial tensions, people are starting to riot, and innocent people are getting killed by senseless acts of violence (“Understanding Prejudice”).
Prejudice is also now known more because of …show more content…
When it comes to police brutality we as people have to understand what a stereotype is also. A stereotype is when someone makes a quick judgment about someone without actually knowing them. A stereotype can be positive or negative towards an individual (“The Undergirding Factor is Power”).l. For example, if you say all asians are good at math, that would be a stereotype even though it’s positive towards the kid. A negative stereotype would be all black teens are thugs. (“Discrimination”) The media portrays these stereotypes against certain ethnic groups and when police officers hear this on the news, then their conscience is telling them all black teens are thugs. So when they're out on duty and a confrontation happens with a black teen, then they automatically get that thought inside of their head because of what they heard by the media that