Abuse Of The African American Community MLA Sample

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Abuse of the African American Community

In the history of the United States, African Americans have found it difficult to

integrate cohesively into the larger American society. Evidently, many generations of African

Americans have been racially stereotyped, treated unequally, and even psychologically held

back from succeeding. Such behaviors and actions did not happen overnight but rather,

perpetuated by each successive generation, and throughout history, African Americans have

been considered as poorly educated, financially unstable, and violent. Coates talks about

these issues in his letter to his son, and this shows that the racial discrimination persists. Also,

the mentioning of his parents as having told him how African Americans have suffered for

years show that this problem has persisted from generation to generation. As a result, they

have been a target of polices’ excessive use of force which has led many African American

males dead. Coates laments on this in his memoir “Between the World and Me” and shows

that African American people are still being discriminated and that there are constant

injustices that can prove it.

In part 2 of “Between the World and Me,” Coates asserts that it is easy for police to

kill African Americans with no valid reason. Coates begins this section of his memoir by

mentioning how several African American males such as Elmer Clay Newton, Gary Hopkins,

And Freddie McCollum were brutalized by the Prince George’s County police (Coates 75).

However, it is the story of Prince Jones that startles him. He says that “Prince Jones had made

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it through and still they had taken him” (Coates 77). This statement by Coates shows that no

matter what heights an African American had achieved, some whites would still consider him

an inferior person and discriminate him on racial grounds. The case of police brutalization of

African Americans is not an isolated one as statistics prove that this occurs very often. In fact,

according to Swaine and Ciara, “young black men were again killed by police at a sharply

higher rate than other Americans in 2016.” The authors go further and assert that black males

of ages 15-34 are nine times more likely to be killed by the police as compared to other

Americans. It seems that nothing much has changed and Coates’s lamentations show the ugly

state that the country is in. It seems that the whites do not care about the lives of African

American people and see it as no big deal when they are killed.

Coates goes into great detail explaining why he thinks Prince Jones was killed. He

asserts that “Prince was not killed by a single officer so much he was murdered by his

country and all the fears that have marked it from birth” (Coates 78). His assertions lead to an

understanding that the United States justice system is not just at all and that the killings of

African Americans are blatantly ignored. This can be seen by continuing killings of African

Americans despite protests by the community. The article “Police Killed At Least 223 Black

Americans In The Year After Colin Kaepernick’s First Protest” proves this by statistics as it

asserts that as NFL players joined Kaepernick in his protests, more than 200 African

Americans were killed by police. The article goes further to mention that some of these

African American men were unarmed and that “Black Americans are twice as likely as white

Americans to be unarmed when police kill them.” This statement is supported by Howard’s

article which states that “the rate with which police use force on blacks is 3.6 times as high as

the rate on whites.” Additionally, the article “Trends in Killings of and by Police” paints a

clear picture of the racial disparity in police killings. The article mentions that “the

concentration of lethal events among Black victims is about three times the proportion of

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Blacks in the U.S. population” (Franklin and Brittany 15). Also, the fact that the percentage

of black people killed by police is 38% of the total police killings shows that the situation has

become no better (Franklin and Brittany 15). Such assertions and statistics show that the

country does not care much about the lives of African Americans and this is mostly due to

racial discrimination.

According to Coates, the reason why African Americans are killed by the police is so

that the whites can achieve the Dream. Coates asserts that:

And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them

into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people

who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream (Coates 79)

Coates views that the white Americans do whatever they can so as to live the life outlined in

the American Dream. According to him, the whites would do whatever they can to achieve

this dream, and this involves eliminating the minority who might be a threat to them. Coates

views can be analyzed using the conflict theory as outlined in the article “Black Shootings,

Conflict Theory, and Policy Implications” by Anderson et al. The article asserts that “the law

and the justice system are based in favor of powerful groups” (Anderson et al. 4). As such,

police brutality against African Americans may be a way to promote the interests of the

whites. Coates goes into great detail describing this as he asserts that racism is connected

with the Dream and that whites believe they are innocent when perpetuating racism in order

for them to achieve the Dream. Indeed, conflict theory and Coates assertion show that the law

favors the whites at the expense of minority groups so that they can achieve the Dream.

Coates ends his letter to his son by discussing on how the killing of one black person

affects the larger community. He says that “In the years after Prince Jones dies, I thought

often of those who were left to make their lives in the shadow of his death” (Coates 135). By

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this statement, Coates implies that the death of Prince Jones affected his immediate family

and since his fiancée was pregnant at the time of the killing, it is sad to know that his

daughter would live without knowing her father. Also, Prince was a well-educated man, and

all that effort seems to have gone to waste. But Coates goes further to imply that the unjust

killing of a black man also affects the entire African American community. Through the

words of Dr. Jones, Prince Jones’ wife, Coates asserts that killing of African Americans

shows that they are still slaves. In fact, when Dr. Jones alludes to 12 Years a Slave to show

how African Americans still cannot progress because of one racist act (Coates 145). Thus,

police killings of African Americans show that all African Americans are not sure if they can

be able to achieve their goals in life as their bodies are mistreated, and they can be killed at

any time. Witnessing the killing of other African Americans, in essence, makes other

members of the community to know that the whites do not want good for them and that they

do not want them to become prosperous in order for them to achieve the Dream.

With such actions, organizations such as the Movement for Black Lives have come

forward to fight for the rights and equality of African American people. According to

Anderson et al. the Movement for Black Lives has been very vocal in fighting against mass

incarceration and police brutality (4). The vision of the Movement for Black Lives is to

“support the development and implementation of visionary and uncompromising local,

national, and international policy objectives aimed at ending state-sanctioned violence against

Black communities” (M4BL). Such efforts are aimed to make everyone feel at home while in

their own country and have the freedom to participate in activities that would make them

prosperous as well as allow the nation to develop. Coates goes into great detail describing the

oppression of African American people and says that “black power births a kind of

understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors” (149). As such, through

Coates’ words, it is evident that Movement for Black Lives reveals the true deeds of the

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society and by their actions, they can foster change and allow the society to be a better place

where everyone has equal opportunities.

Through the story of Prince, Coates memoir shows that police abuse African

Americans with no valid reason and that the justice system does not do anything to hold them

accountable for their actions. African American bodies are treated as garbage and police kill

them at their will. This is not only evidenced in Coates’s memoir, but also by other sources

that the rate of use of excessive force is more for African Americans than other Americans.

Also, they are killed more by police as compared to other Americans. These acts have led to

the formation of groups such as the Movement for Black Lives which have been instrumental

in fighting for the rights of the Blacks. Thus, the writings of people such as Coates show the

mistreatment of African Americans in their own country and inspire action from groups such

as the Movement for Black Lives so that the society can become a better place for all people.

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Works Cited

"About Us - The Movement For Black Lives." The Movement For Black Lives, 2018,

https://policy.m4bl.org/about/.

Anderson, James F., Kelley Reinsmith-Jones, and Willie M. Brooks Jr. "Black Shootings,

Conflict Theory, and Policy Implications." Int'l J. Soc. Sci. Stud. 4 (2016): 10.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the world and me. Text publishing, 2015.

Howard, Jacqueline. "Study: Black Men Nearly 3 Times As Likely To Die From Police Use

Of Force." CNN, 2016, https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/20/health/black-men-killed-

by-police/index.html.

Swaine, Jon, and Ciara McCarthy. "Young Black Men Again Faced Highest Rate Of US

Police Killings In 2016." The Guardian, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-

news/2017/jan/08/the-counted-police-killings-2016-young-black-men.

Waldron, Travis. "Police Killed 223 Black Americans In Year After Colin Kaepernick's First

Protest." HuffPost UK, 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-

police-killings-black-americans_us_599c4099e4b04c532f447939.

Zimring, Franklin E., and Brittany Arsiniega. "Trends in the killing of and by police: a

preliminary analysis." Ohio St. J. Crim. L.13 (2015): 247.

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