Institutional Racism Exposed In Bob Dylan's Song 'Hurricane'

The 1975 song “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan is filled with many examples of institutional racism, conflict theory, and ascribed and achieved status. The eleven verse song features Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and how he was falsely accused of murdering three, almost four people in a bar. This event happened in Paterson, New Jersey in the nineteen-sixties, so things such as crime and racial tension were relatively high. Even so, Rubin Carter managed to become a successful black boxer in a time where something like that was almost unheard of.
Institutional racism is how racism is seemingly embedded into different parts of society. This could range everywhere from the classroom to the job field, in the sixties, institutional racism was especially prevalent in how the government interacted with its people. This often culminated in social unrest, shootings, and even riots. The area of society with the most widespread institutional racism had to have been the police. There was no way to hold officers accountable the way there is today with the internet and camera cellphones. Proper forensic testing was also more expensive and not readily available, so it was easier to simply pick whoever they wanted to blame for crimes, because it was hard to tell who in fact committed the crimes.
This concept is prolific throughout the entire song. In the sixth
At the time, Rubin’s roles of being black and a middleweight champion did not sit well with people in power. This is seen in stanza seven, particularly in the last line where a cop is quoted as saying “he ain’t no Gentleman Jim”. This is referring to a nineteen-forties movie called Gentleman Jim starring a white boxer. The picture of a boxer to them was that of someone white and entirely straight laced. The prosecution then used this common public sentiment to further convince the jury that Carter had to have committed the