Racism:The Immortal Villain

Racism: The Immortal Villain

Wilner Zabala

John Jay College

English 101 

Professor Matyakubova

12/13/19

Racism; the Immortal Villain

Ever since the United States’ creation, racism has been plaguing the land we live on with no intention of stopping. Racism always existed because there were always a group of people in a society that were persecuted or discriminated against. However, in the United States racism became a serious problem during slavery. In modern society, even though slavery has been abolished long ago, racism still plagues the country. It is now the 21st century, and society has adopted many new forms of racism and still uses some of the old forms. With the previous statement in mind, there are many racial issues still prevalent, such as police brutality, inner race racism, political racism, and racism in the legal system. I firmly believe that racism can not be stopped. 

Racism can’t and won't die. Racism has been around since the creation of the country. When the pilgrims traveled the seas to find new homage they found land that was occupied, however, felt as if they were superior to those native to the lands. This country was founded on the backs of minorities them, working to help build this country while the majority oppressed them. At every generation of America’s timeline, there has not been a time where minorities were equal to the majority both in institutions and individuals. From slavery to Asian building the railroads, to the civil rights movements, to today racism thrives and continue to oppress minorities like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. In the book Engaging Cinema, in the text, the author Bill Nichols states “Institutional and individual prejudice function ideologically to internalize an image of one’s relation to the world.” (Pg. 328). I state this quote from the text because minorities were oppressed both in institutions like school, public transportation system, government buildings, and in court. While also getting oppressed individually by the majority (whites) or sometimes by people of your own race. In the same book, it says, “individual racism leads to experiences of the power of hierarchy to affirm or hurt.” (Pg. 329). Individual racism is the type of racism minorities face today. Through police injustice, political racism, inner race racism, and systemic racism that specifically targets people of color. Racism continues to live on and I believe that it will continue to live on because fundamentally changing all the things I will talk about and analyze will mean changing the country in as a whole and isn’t possible.

In today’s world racism hasn’t been resolved or forgotten about, racism has only taken a grander scale from what it used to be. No matter how much people of color have stood up and protested the injustice they face at the hands of the majority there is no indication of racism stopping soon. From the racism that comes from the Trump Administration to facing racism from fellow minorities, to facing injustice from the hands of police, to facing racism in the legal system, racism is everywhere.

I interviewed two John Jay Students, one aspiring to work for Google with a computer science degree named Nikolas Perez and the other aspiring to work for the FBI with a forensic psychology degree Jessica Ardita. Though they are both pursuing different things in life one thing that binds them together is the color of their skin. They are both minorities in America that migrated from their respective countries. I asked them the same question which was “What do you think about police brutality?” Perez’s and Ardita’s responses were similar, they essentially said that they believe that most police officers don’t abuse their power but there are some who use their power to harass and terrify individuals. The similarity in their responses left me questioning the police system because if two people that never met or heard of each other can have the same opinion on police brutality then imagine other people.

According to the Washington Post, in 2019 there have been 783 deaths due to police shootings. A majority of those shootings were officers gunning down a person of color. The reason I state this is because minorities in our society believe that police officers target minorities more. Those people believe that the police would have no problem being aggressive and accidentally killing people off, while if it was a white person committing a crime, the police would rather escalate the situation than get aggressive. People like Eric Garner, Lamar Lynch, and many more were men of color who were gunned down and carried out in body bags for non-violent crimes or acts. However, people that conducted public shootings were talked down by the police and taken away in handcuffs. 

There were many encounters between Eric Garner and the police. A specific encountered occurred on a June day in Staten Island, NY. Garner was walking on the sidewalk when an unmarked police car pulled up; the officers mostly knew Garner for selling untaxed cigarettes. When the officers approached Garner, Garner shouted at them to back off. He also flared his arms ad refused to be frisked/detained by the officers. However, he was left with a warning. The next time Garner and the police had an encounter ultimately led to Garner’s death. This day occurred on July 17, 2014, there was a struggle between the officers and Garner that was recorded by Garner’s friend. With Garner resisting arrest, more officers showed up and started attacking Garner. Garner was put into a chokehold cutting off his breathing. Garner’s finals word was “I can’t breathe” and with that Garner passed away. (Information provided by the NYTimes).

Furthermore, I stated all that information about Eric Garner’s death because it shows the racism that is within the police system. Due to Garner being a big black man, the police officers felt it necessary to use excessive force that ended up killing Garner. However, with the multiple shooting led by white men, such as the shooting in Walmart in El Paso, Texas or the Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Ct. These two men shot and killed innocent people and were walked out in handcuffs by a police officer. That is complete and utter racism in the truest form because a white person who killed people is alive and well while a black man who only sold untaxed cigarettes can never take another breath due to police brutality.

This leads me to the conversation of systemic racism. Systemic racism is when systems placed for people such as the criminal justice system and the police system affects minorities significantly worse than other “majority races.” (According to What is Systemic Racism). Though the criminal justice system ad the police system are meant to protect civilians, people believe that they dispositionally affect minorities negatively. For example, in the text, POLICE BRUTALITY, THE LAW & TODAY’S SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT: HOW THE LACK OF POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY HAS FUELED #HASHTAG ACTIVISM,  by Corinthia A. Carter, it says, “Hamilton’s murder is just one of the many murders suffered by Black males at the hands of officers. The seemingly state-sanctioned deaths of Black males are not abstract events, but rather almost daily occurrences.” I state this piece of evidence because of it essentially states that minorities, more importantly, black men are prosecuted or killed for by basically stepping outside their house and going about their day; most of them don’t commit tremendous crimes, while some don’t commit crimes at all but within these systems, they are on the low end of the spectrums of being a “model” citizen. This idea is further proven in the previous text stated, it says,

 On April 30, 2014, Milwaukee police officers responded to complaints about a man sleeping in Red Arrow Park.2 The man was Dontre Hamilton, 31, a Black male with a history of mental illness.3 Christopher Manney, the white officer, woke up Hamilton and began patting him down.4 At some point, a struggle ensued and it ended with Hamilton’s death; his body left riddled with bullets. Manney had shot Hamilton 14 times.

Minorities are systematically oppressed more by the police system even when they haven’t committed crimes or the crimes they committed weren’t big. This makes minorities to be in fear to be outside by the people who swore to protect them.  

Black people always get the “shorthand of the stick”, meaning that they always get mistreated and misrepresented by the rest of society. For example, in the article From “brute” to “thug:” The demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America, it says “NFL football player Richard Sherman was called a "thug" for his postgame interview following the National Football Conference Championship game (Wagner, [72]). Although Sherman did not use vulgar language or express any feelings of violence or criminal action, his physical presence and loud voice was used to evoke the idea of "thuggery." The word thug means a violent person, especially a criminal. Minorities get characterized as thug because of the color of their skin. I use this piece of text because Sherman wasn’t acting “black” when he spoke but due to his color and his physical features, he automatically looked like a thug. Instead of looking at him as a regular human being they pre-characterized him as a criminal because of his physical appearance. This is a reason why racism can’t die because minorities are always gonna be prejudged based on made-up societal stereotypes. 

Social stereotypes such as most minorities being criminals or most minorities are on drugs. To prove this further, in the article From “brute” to “thug:” The demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America. On April 28, 2015, it says, “President Barack Obama referred to a collection of citizens from Baltimore, Maryland, as "criminals and thugs" in response to a question about the recent rebellion that broke following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. The use of the term "thug" by President Obama became the zenith of the word's use to characterize primarily individuals and groups of Black males.” When public figures such as Barack Obama uses words like thugs to characterize black males allow for those types of stereotypes to hold power and become the norm because it’s coming from someone well known. Public figures, especially politicians using stereotypes against minorities is another reason why racism can’t die because those stereotypes become stronger since a public figure is using them people think them to be truer than before.

One of the biggest reasons why racism won’t die is due to inner race racism. Inner race racism is when someone is racist towards their own race. For example, when a black person tells another black person they don’t act “black” enough. In the English journal To Dismantle Racism, We Must Discuss It by Lorena German, it says “We also meet Jin Wang from Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese. Jin takes Gabi's struggle a step further: he makes the choice to pass as White. Jin is a great example of what racism and the supremacy of Whiteness can accomplish when internalized. Jin's desire to fit in socially and to be accepted is so strong that he represses his own identity. He resists his culture, his language, his family, himself.” In this direct quote, Jin shows inner-race racism oppressing his own race because of the fear of being rejected by his peers. Trying to fit in by oppressing your own race won’t let racism die because the stereotype of whites being superior grows more. Denying our own race and assimilating to another race to be accepted in others’ eyes shows that, that race is better than our own.

Furthermore, I asked Nikolas Perez and Jessica Ardita other questions during our interview. I asked them the following questions What racial issues do you see in today’s politics? They both answered “The Trump Administration.” The second question I asked them was How do you feel about the Trump Administration? Republican Party? Ardita answered, “I would like to meet Trump, So I can personally tell him how I feel. Trump has made this country difficult for minorities.” While Perez answered I feel that Trump is racist, especially when he shut down the government for about one month and a half just because he wanted funding to build the wall. Also, the way he treats immigrants, locking them up like they are criminals for trying to look for a better life. While both their answers were different, the same tone could be inferred, they equally feel that Trump is a racist and made this country incredibly difficult to live by because, with a racist in that type of power, racism is allowed to grow exponentially because people are more verbal with their racism in society when someone like that is in power basically exercising their “white privilege” freely. Furthermore, the President is known as the commander in chief, meaning that he is ultimately in charge of the military and the entire police force. The reason I state this because with a racist in power and more importantly a racist that is in charge of the police essentially condone the acts of police brutality of blacks; because if your “boss” is a racist then, in turn, you are allowed to be a racist due to your boss believing in the same ideals you believe in. furthermore, in the article, The 10 worst things Trump did in 2018 “His policy to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border was an avoidable tragedy. There is nothing wrong with a zero-tolerance policy for illegal crossings. But his administration’s failure to anticipate and prepare for how to deal with migrant families was gross negligence — a symptom of the chaos that is undermining his presidency.” Trump did this to minorities, not white people but to minorities. Whites from other countries migrating to the United States aren’t looked as aliens but people and have an easier time getting a visa or a permanent residency card to enter the country. This is yet another reason why racism won’t die anytime soon or at all because most immigrants come to America to look for a better life but it’s unfair when a minority immigrant or immigrant minority family is looked upon as criminals.

In conclusion, Racism won’t die and will continue to thrive no matter what century or society we are in. Racism embedded itself in the foundation of our country, with that in mind racism continues to live on and I believe that it will continue to live on because fundamentally changing all the things I talked about and analyzed. will mean changing the country in as a whole and isn’t possible. Through police injustice, political racism, inner race racism, and systemic racism that specifically targets people of color racism will live on no matter how bad it is.

Bibliography 

Carter, Corinthia A. (2017). Police Brutality, the Law & Today's Social Justice Movement: How the Lack of Police Accountability has Fueled #Hashtag Activism. City University of New York Law Review.

Germán, L. (2019). To dismantle racism, we must discuss it. English Journal, 108(4), 15-16. Retrieved from https://ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ez.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/docview/2201670197?accountid=11724

Baker, A., Goodman, J. D., & Mueller, B. (2015, June 13). Beyond the Chokehold: The Path to Eric Garner's Death. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html.

Smith, M. (2017, June 16). Minnesota Officer Acquitted in Killing of Philando Castile. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html.

Thiessen, M. (2019, January 3). Opinion | The 10 worst things Trump did in 2018. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-10-worst-things-trump-did-in-2018/2019/01/02/f4025456-0eb0-11e9-84fc-d58c33d6c8c7_story.html.

Trump Administration's Proposed Rule Would Perpetuate Racist and Discriminatory Housing Practices. (2019, October 21). Retrieved from https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/trump-administrations-proposed-rule-would-perpetuate-racist-and-discriminatory.

Nichols, B. (2010). Engaging cinema: an introduction to film studies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.