Racism In The Present Tense: Case Study
Mandeeppal Multani
Professor Delores Jones-Brown J.D. Ph.D.
Law 313.01
Fall 2014
Racism in the Present Tense
‘’Aiyanna Jones (age 7), Victor White III, Dante Parker, Ezell Ford, Tyree Woodson, John Crawford III, Eric Garner, Yvette Smith, Jordan Baker, Barrington Williams, Carlos Alcis, Deion Fludd, Jonathan Ferrell, Kimani Gray, Kyam Livingstone, Larry Eugene Jackson, Jr., Miriam Carey, Chavis Carter, Dante Price, Duane Brown, Ervin Jefferson, Jersey Green, Johnnnie Kamahi Warren, Justin Slipp, Kendrec McDade, Malissa Williams, Nehemiah Dillard, Ramarley Graham, Raymond Allen, Rekia Boyd, Reynaldo Cuevas, Robert Dumas Jr, Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr, Shantel Davis, Sharmel Edwards, Shereese Francis, Tamon Robinson, Timothy Russell, Wendell …show more content…
Allen, Alonzo Ashley, Jimmell Cannon, Kenneth Chamberlain, Kenneth Harding, Raheim Brown, Reginald Doucet, Aaron Campbell, Danroy Henry, Derrick Jones Steven Eugene Washington, Kiwane Carrington Oscar Grant, Shem Walker, Victor Steen, Tarika Wilson, and Michael Brown from Ferguson,’’MO are all the innocent people killed by the police, and Not counting people killed during protests, riots, massacres, executions, vigilantes or security guards, these are the number of unarmed Black people killed by the police since Barack Obama took office, a signal of the end of racism to many whites, only a significate step for many blacks. Although some rules of racism have changed minds or consciousness is only slowly evolving. (abagond. (2014, Aug 26)
In 1963 Marin Luther King Jr. in a remarkable land mark speech noted, “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice”. King continued:
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. (Martin Luther King, Jr.: I have a dream, 2001)
In 1979 author Derrick Bell wrote And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, in which he remains the masses of the difficulty America, is having find equality for all. Over three decades later unarmed Michael Brown is gunned down in Ferguson MO, and the police officer that killed him is likely to be let off without a trial. With all the killing of Black people by the state two important questions are as relevant today as they were when Bell wrote them in 1979: 1) Beyond its guilt-evoking potential, does slavery have any value in analyzing contemporary racial policies and civil rights doctrine? and 2) Can an ultimate civil rights strategy be achieved through law? (Bell, 1979).
Bell’s work explores the history of racism, policing, criminal law, and punishment in the United States from colonial times to the present. In addition, he considers key problems in the history of criminal justice and black people, such as the relationship between legal and extra-legal punishments, and the impact of the civil rights movement. Perhaps what is most valuable about Bell’s work is the exploring of racial consciousness in the minds of the dominant group in America—Whites. This point is displayed well in the mouth of a Colonel character, who when reflecting on racism rule and law notes, “That’s the way the world is. We did not make the rules, we simply play by them, and you really have no alternative but to do the same. Please don’t take it personally” (Bell, 1979, p. 44).
The issue is plain, modern American society, like any society, has its set of ideas and practices that reinforce and maintain the privileges of dominant groups. These groups are usually concerned with powerful social, economic, and political interests. These concepts have been explored by great thinkers, writers, and revolutionaries like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Karl Marx and Bell in And We Are Not Saved, and most importantly our great John Jay professor Brown Marshall in Race, Law and American Society. Such people understood that agencies of socialization reinforce approaches to maintaining dominate ideology by establishing social control. This is the very reason why conversation on slavery ae in fact useful in analyzing contemporary racial policy and civil right doctrine because slavery help us focus on the potential outcomes of dominate groups conscious, in this case white supremacy thinking. For example, as in Pre-Civil War ear, slave proprietors used the threat of violent revolts as the “common danger” to increase support for slavery among whites, black crime exaggerations serve a similar contemporary purpose (Bell, 1979). By causing whites with otherwise conflicting economic and political interest to suspect all blacks as potential attackers, the threat persuades many whites that they must unite against their common danger” (Bell, 1979, p. 247). Social control is the key and it is based in large part on notions of shite supremacy.
Fergusons MO, it can be argued, is a great example of white supremacy ideology at work.
The state of the Michel Brown killing and infamous Dreed Scoot land rights case that went all the way to the supreme court only to be told by chief justice Roger Taney that he had no right to sue, notes the supreme court justice, because as a black man he was never meant to be an America. When consider the declaration of independence Taney said “It is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were note intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration”. He continue to add that black men ‘had no rights which the white man was bound to respect” (Harris-Perry, …show more content…
2014)
If we better understand social control we may be taking a step towards social change and a healthier and free society. Social control refers to social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliances to the rules of society. Social control is present in all societies, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of chaos or crime. Formal social control, which is responsible for maintaining dominate power ideologies, is expressed through law as statutes, rules, and regulations against deviant behavior. It is conducted by government and organizations using law enforcement mechanisms and other formal sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.
In democratic societies the goals and mechanisms of formal social control are determined through legislation by the elected representatives and enjoy a measure of support from the society. In modern American capitalistic society, however, the leaders of modern corporations dominate societies and employ indoctrination as a means of social control. The marketing, advertising, and public relations industries have been said to utilize mass communications to aid the interests of certain business elites.
Also, powerful economic and religious lobbyists have often used school systems and centralized electronic communications to influence public opinion. Democracy is restricted as the majority is not given the information necessary to make rational decisions about ethical, social, or economic issues. In addition, policing and punishment usually is hardly color blind. It is not a coincidence that minorities serve longer sentences, have higher arrest and conviction rates, face higher bail amounts, and are more often the victims of police use of deadly force than white citizens. Many people have a preconception of a criminal as a Black or Latino; and this notion of black as criminal support not-action on various fronts. A Ford Foundation study noted for example:
By 2004, fifty percent of black men in their twenties’ who lacked a college education were jobless, as were seventy two percent of high school dropouts.
Forty two percent of all African American boys have failed an entire grade at least once and only eighteen percent of black men ages twenty –twenty one are enrolled in college.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics projected that nine percent of the male population in America will serve some time in state or federal prison; twenty eight percent for black males, sixteen percent for Hispanic males, and four percent for white males. (Littles, Bowers, & Gilmer, 2000)
The thought of an Asioan criminal is often related to Asian gangs. Interestingly enough, White people as a group are rarely associated with the thought of crime, although in the U.S. they are usually the perpetrators in the most awful crimes like serial killing or ripping off billions of dollars from fellow citizens as in the recent Wall Street scandals. In order to change this misuse of power we first must be aware of dominant ideologies, the agencies that reinforce them, and how reinforcement is being conducted. At the end of the day, however, nothing will happen if we the citizens don’t get involved in the process. Citizens have to spend the time and effort to challenge the corporations and governments. This is what a government for the people and by the people should stand for and it is the essence of democracy. The word democracy makes us who we are, We stand as a nation and we all should decide on what we do. But we must be willing to invest time in re-working the agencies of socialization. The women who launched the women 's right-to-vote movement decided to spend time in the face of incredible opposition. The people who fought to abolish slavery also decided to spend time. The workers who formed the unions gave time. If we want a stronger democratic system, we have to be willing to pay the price in terms of our time and effort.
Bell seems to think, according to some reviews (Roger Wilkins, “Talking Past History, The Nation, 19 March 1988), that the searching for the ultimate civil rights strategy does not exist. Bell, according to Wilkins should be ending his work with “hard analysis about strategy, organization and politics” (Bell, 1979, p. 270). However, another reviewer Preeta Bansal, The Battleground of Experience,” Harvard Law Review 101 (1988), comes to Bells defense. Bansal (1988) points out that “The impossibility of formulating an ultimate strategy reflects not Bell’s own shortcomings but rather the shortcomings of a process that will likely continue as long as there are among us human beings who, for whatever reason, choose to hold other human beings in their power” (Bell, 1979, p. 271). Nevertheless, Wilkins makes a point for a focus on education of blacks. What is missing is a focus on conscious raising education on everyone whites, black, Asian, lations etc. A law will not work alone, it must be supported by changes in minds and hearts.
In conclusion, Being born into a dominate group gives one the role of being in power without having to earn it.
The dominants are always going to suppress the subordinates in order to gain control over them. Although society has become accustomed to labeling individuals depending on where one comes from, it is crucial that subordinates put a stop to the dominants over powering them in order to gain more authority and higher social roles. Subordinates are the only ones who have the power to stop the way society functions and stand up for themselves and their people in order to gain a fair chance of power and equality. This is where literature like Bell’s And We Are Not Saved and the revisiting of slavery and civil rights solution is vital.
References abagond. (2014, Aug 26). A list of unarmed Blacks killed by police. Retrieved from ABAGOND: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/a-list-of-unarmed-blacks-killed-by-police/
Bell, D. (1979). And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Harris-Perry, M. (2014, Aug 16). The deaths of black men in America. Retrieved from msnbc: http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/watch/the-deaths-of-black-men-in-america-318795331819
King, M. L. (1963). Why we can 't wait. Signet Classic.
Littles, M. J., Bowers, R., & Gilmer, M. (2000). Why we can’t wait: A Report prepared for the Ford Foundation. New York: Ford Foundation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: I have a dream. (2001). Retrieved from American Rhetoric:
Top 100 speeches: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
Professor Delores Jones-Brown J.D. Ph.D.
Law 313.01
Fall 2014
Racism in the Present Tense
‘’Aiyanna Jones (age 7), Victor White III, Dante Parker, Ezell Ford, Tyree Woodson, John Crawford III, Eric Garner, Yvette Smith, Jordan Baker, Barrington Williams, Carlos Alcis, Deion Fludd, Jonathan Ferrell, Kimani Gray, Kyam Livingstone, Larry Eugene Jackson, Jr., Miriam Carey, Chavis Carter, Dante Price, Duane Brown, Ervin Jefferson, Jersey Green, Johnnnie Kamahi Warren, Justin Slipp, Kendrec McDade, Malissa Williams, Nehemiah Dillard, Ramarley Graham, Raymond Allen, Rekia Boyd, Reynaldo Cuevas, Robert Dumas Jr, Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr, Shantel Davis, Sharmel Edwards, Shereese Francis, Tamon Robinson, Timothy Russell, Wendell …show more content…
Allen, Alonzo Ashley, Jimmell Cannon, Kenneth Chamberlain, Kenneth Harding, Raheim Brown, Reginald Doucet, Aaron Campbell, Danroy Henry, Derrick Jones Steven Eugene Washington, Kiwane Carrington Oscar Grant, Shem Walker, Victor Steen, Tarika Wilson, and Michael Brown from Ferguson,’’MO are all the innocent people killed by the police, and Not counting people killed during protests, riots, massacres, executions, vigilantes or security guards, these are the number of unarmed Black people killed by the police since Barack Obama took office, a signal of the end of racism to many whites, only a significate step for many blacks. Although some rules of racism have changed minds or consciousness is only slowly evolving. (abagond. (2014, Aug 26)
In 1963 Marin Luther King Jr. in a remarkable land mark speech noted, “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice”. King continued:
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. (Martin Luther King, Jr.: I have a dream, 2001)
In 1979 author Derrick Bell wrote And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice, in which he remains the masses of the difficulty America, is having find equality for all. Over three decades later unarmed Michael Brown is gunned down in Ferguson MO, and the police officer that killed him is likely to be let off without a trial. With all the killing of Black people by the state two important questions are as relevant today as they were when Bell wrote them in 1979: 1) Beyond its guilt-evoking potential, does slavery have any value in analyzing contemporary racial policies and civil rights doctrine? and 2) Can an ultimate civil rights strategy be achieved through law? (Bell, 1979).
Bell’s work explores the history of racism, policing, criminal law, and punishment in the United States from colonial times to the present. In addition, he considers key problems in the history of criminal justice and black people, such as the relationship between legal and extra-legal punishments, and the impact of the civil rights movement. Perhaps what is most valuable about Bell’s work is the exploring of racial consciousness in the minds of the dominant group in America—Whites. This point is displayed well in the mouth of a Colonel character, who when reflecting on racism rule and law notes, “That’s the way the world is. We did not make the rules, we simply play by them, and you really have no alternative but to do the same. Please don’t take it personally” (Bell, 1979, p. 44).
The issue is plain, modern American society, like any society, has its set of ideas and practices that reinforce and maintain the privileges of dominant groups. These groups are usually concerned with powerful social, economic, and political interests. These concepts have been explored by great thinkers, writers, and revolutionaries like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Karl Marx and Bell in And We Are Not Saved, and most importantly our great John Jay professor Brown Marshall in Race, Law and American Society. Such people understood that agencies of socialization reinforce approaches to maintaining dominate ideology by establishing social control. This is the very reason why conversation on slavery ae in fact useful in analyzing contemporary racial policy and civil right doctrine because slavery help us focus on the potential outcomes of dominate groups conscious, in this case white supremacy thinking. For example, as in Pre-Civil War ear, slave proprietors used the threat of violent revolts as the “common danger” to increase support for slavery among whites, black crime exaggerations serve a similar contemporary purpose (Bell, 1979). By causing whites with otherwise conflicting economic and political interest to suspect all blacks as potential attackers, the threat persuades many whites that they must unite against their common danger” (Bell, 1979, p. 247). Social control is the key and it is based in large part on notions of shite supremacy.
Fergusons MO, it can be argued, is a great example of white supremacy ideology at work.
The state of the Michel Brown killing and infamous Dreed Scoot land rights case that went all the way to the supreme court only to be told by chief justice Roger Taney that he had no right to sue, notes the supreme court justice, because as a black man he was never meant to be an America. When consider the declaration of independence Taney said “It is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were note intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration”. He continue to add that black men ‘had no rights which the white man was bound to respect” (Harris-Perry, …show more content…
2014)
If we better understand social control we may be taking a step towards social change and a healthier and free society. Social control refers to social mechanisms that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliances to the rules of society. Social control is present in all societies, if only in the control mechanisms used to prevent the establishment of chaos or crime. Formal social control, which is responsible for maintaining dominate power ideologies, is expressed through law as statutes, rules, and regulations against deviant behavior. It is conducted by government and organizations using law enforcement mechanisms and other formal sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.
In democratic societies the goals and mechanisms of formal social control are determined through legislation by the elected representatives and enjoy a measure of support from the society. In modern American capitalistic society, however, the leaders of modern corporations dominate societies and employ indoctrination as a means of social control. The marketing, advertising, and public relations industries have been said to utilize mass communications to aid the interests of certain business elites.
Also, powerful economic and religious lobbyists have often used school systems and centralized electronic communications to influence public opinion. Democracy is restricted as the majority is not given the information necessary to make rational decisions about ethical, social, or economic issues. In addition, policing and punishment usually is hardly color blind. It is not a coincidence that minorities serve longer sentences, have higher arrest and conviction rates, face higher bail amounts, and are more often the victims of police use of deadly force than white citizens. Many people have a preconception of a criminal as a Black or Latino; and this notion of black as criminal support not-action on various fronts. A Ford Foundation study noted for example:
By 2004, fifty percent of black men in their twenties’ who lacked a college education were jobless, as were seventy two percent of high school dropouts.
Forty two percent of all African American boys have failed an entire grade at least once and only eighteen percent of black men ages twenty –twenty one are enrolled in college.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics projected that nine percent of the male population in America will serve some time in state or federal prison; twenty eight percent for black males, sixteen percent for Hispanic males, and four percent for white males. (Littles, Bowers, & Gilmer, 2000)
The thought of an Asioan criminal is often related to Asian gangs. Interestingly enough, White people as a group are rarely associated with the thought of crime, although in the U.S. they are usually the perpetrators in the most awful crimes like serial killing or ripping off billions of dollars from fellow citizens as in the recent Wall Street scandals. In order to change this misuse of power we first must be aware of dominant ideologies, the agencies that reinforce them, and how reinforcement is being conducted. At the end of the day, however, nothing will happen if we the citizens don’t get involved in the process. Citizens have to spend the time and effort to challenge the corporations and governments. This is what a government for the people and by the people should stand for and it is the essence of democracy. The word democracy makes us who we are, We stand as a nation and we all should decide on what we do. But we must be willing to invest time in re-working the agencies of socialization. The women who launched the women 's right-to-vote movement decided to spend time in the face of incredible opposition. The people who fought to abolish slavery also decided to spend time. The workers who formed the unions gave time. If we want a stronger democratic system, we have to be willing to pay the price in terms of our time and effort.
Bell seems to think, according to some reviews (Roger Wilkins, “Talking Past History, The Nation, 19 March 1988), that the searching for the ultimate civil rights strategy does not exist. Bell, according to Wilkins should be ending his work with “hard analysis about strategy, organization and politics” (Bell, 1979, p. 270). However, another reviewer Preeta Bansal, The Battleground of Experience,” Harvard Law Review 101 (1988), comes to Bells defense. Bansal (1988) points out that “The impossibility of formulating an ultimate strategy reflects not Bell’s own shortcomings but rather the shortcomings of a process that will likely continue as long as there are among us human beings who, for whatever reason, choose to hold other human beings in their power” (Bell, 1979, p. 271). Nevertheless, Wilkins makes a point for a focus on education of blacks. What is missing is a focus on conscious raising education on everyone whites, black, Asian, lations etc. A law will not work alone, it must be supported by changes in minds and hearts.
In conclusion, Being born into a dominate group gives one the role of being in power without having to earn it.
The dominants are always going to suppress the subordinates in order to gain control over them. Although society has become accustomed to labeling individuals depending on where one comes from, it is crucial that subordinates put a stop to the dominants over powering them in order to gain more authority and higher social roles. Subordinates are the only ones who have the power to stop the way society functions and stand up for themselves and their people in order to gain a fair chance of power and equality. This is where literature like Bell’s And We Are Not Saved and the revisiting of slavery and civil rights solution is vital.
References abagond. (2014, Aug 26). A list of unarmed Blacks killed by police. Retrieved from ABAGOND: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/a-list-of-unarmed-blacks-killed-by-police/
Bell, D. (1979). And we are not saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Harris-Perry, M. (2014, Aug 16). The deaths of black men in America. Retrieved from msnbc: http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/watch/the-deaths-of-black-men-in-america-318795331819
King, M. L. (1963). Why we can 't wait. Signet Classic.
Littles, M. J., Bowers, R., & Gilmer, M. (2000). Why we can’t wait: A Report prepared for the Ford Foundation. New York: Ford Foundation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: I have a dream. (2001). Retrieved from American Rhetoric:
Top 100 speeches: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm