Racism Blog #1
I found an article about the shooting outside of a stripclub in Queens that we mentioned in class: http://www.nysun.com/article/44585
This article claimed that the shooting was not in fact due to the police being racist, but officers doing their job and acting on evidence that they had found. The article’s author doesn’t seem particularly racist or antiracism, as he does point out both ways that Sean Bell could have been killed. The point was made that…
“One might reason as follows: Black people are overrepresented in dangerous neighborhoods. Thus, officers will have more violent encounters with black men than with white ones. Possibly, then, officers of any color, exhibiting the tendency inherent to our species to generalize, might internalize, even involuntarily, that in tense situations, black men are more of a threat than others.”
I think it’s very interesting that today, even though we don’t believe that racism exists much anymore, a lot of us probably think of African Americans and other races differently without even realizing it. The reason given by the author is a veyr possible one, that black people are generally found more often in poorer communities, and so we think of them as more of a threat than others. Clearly, there are a lot of possible reasons that we and the police officers might possibly have been racist.
December 12th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
You picked a very interesting article. I was drawn back when you said that you don’t believe that racism exists much anymore. I think that there are so many judgemental people out there, and that many conflicts that occur in the news are caused by racist comments that aren’t mentioned upfront in the article. I agree with how most people make a separation between themselves and a different race without even realizing it.
December 14th, 2006 at 11:30 am
[…] Anna I think it’s very interesting that today, even though we don’t believe that racism exists much anymore, a lot of us probably think of African Americans and other races differently without even realizing it. The reason given by the author is a veyr possible one, that black people are generally found more often in poorer communities, and so we think of them as more of a threat than others. Clearly, there are a lot of possible reasons that we and the police officers might possibly have been racist. […]
December 14th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Adding on to lizzy’s comment: I think that a lot of us want to believe that Racism doesn’t exist anymore, but know that it really does. Plenty of people may say that Racism is a minor issue and that only sometimes may it cause problems, but in reality Racism is a huge problem and everyone knows it. People are aware of it, but they may not be willing to admit it themselves. I agree with Lizzy that many problems/conflicts have an underlying cause of race behind it. The article you choose was very good, because it showed that Racism can be a cause to blame everyware, hopefully in the future racism won’t be as much as a problem.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Oh wow i never heard about the shooting outside the strip club in Queens! how ironic! I found the article that you added to your blog very interesting. I agree with “Clearly, there are a lot of possible reasons that we and the police officers might possibly have been racist.” I think that many people do not want to be racist but, the streotypes overpower their view on certain people such as, what as the event that you talked about in your blog.