Racism is not about bad manners, but a system of treatment, discrimination and brutality in American society. Diversity groups face Racism everywhere their surroundings. In New York City there has been a lot of cases where unarmed individuals are being killed and stopped. After reading the “Intersections” play written by students of LaGuardia community college, gives students knowledge about others situation in terms of financially stability, family matters, education importance, stress they go through and how they resolve it. In the play of “Intersections” there was a situation occurred at the end, where an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed by the police without any warrant and justify evidence. In America we are been educated that we have our rights everywhere, we have the right to not cooperate with police without any warrant. Yet, there are still individuals mostly Black are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted and executed than any other group. How police force overwhelmingly attacks unarmed black individual increasingly in the New York City?
Reading the article “Police Terror in Big Apple” by George Scott, concluded that police brutality has been increased in the New York City. “Stop and Frisk” is all about people experienced with cops. “Stop and Frisk” is when police temporarily detain a person and check that person. As George Scott said “Getting stopped and possibly beaten by NYPD is the experience… for blacks’ folks, yet … VERY few white folks share” (Scott 21). White people are on the sideline in these type of accidents while black people experience “stop and frisk” very often by the police. White don’t face these struggles. Scott also discus that 53% black people were stopped by the NYPD in 2011 compare to white people were stopped only 9%. We see the number difference is way too much between black and white folks stopped by. To me which obviously seems racism in police system. The stop and frisk law was changed after “Scheindlin ruled in an American civil liberties Uman-initiated case, that the NYPD must have probable cause in order to stop people” (Scott 21). This was a new rule added to the NYC state law by federal Judge Scheindln because of the fact that New York City police officers have blind eye to the evidence and are conducting stops in a “racially discriminatory manner” (Scott 21). Racism should not be existed in this modern world, in the United State of America. America the land of freedom, but not free of discrimination n and racism. A land where innocent teenagers are being killed unarmed. And all this happened in the case of Ramarley Graham in 2012. Graham was 18, an unarmed teenager who was shot and killed by the NYPD in his grandmother house in the Bronx. Graham was shot with “no warrant” (Scott 22). He was killed because he had marihuana and the police saw him with it. However, Graham was not give justice. “In 2013 a grand jury refused to indict the officer” (Scott 22). This case is full of brutally behavior and so prejudice to Graham family. Police did not have any evidence to prove he was the suspect, without any witness he was overwhelmingly shot. This seemed to me every racist. Graham was just a teenager in age where everyone black/white/any race teenager would have these types of drug. Why would a police kill a teenager having marijuana with him? This was inhumane aspect of the NYPD system.
Another article “The Rise Black-aimed death squads among the police” by Amiri Baraka. Amiri Baraka discussed the case of Amadou Diallo’s, 23 years old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four NYPD in 1999. This case was such a heartbreaking and brutal. Diallo was immigrant, came for education, expect for better life and was killed violently. Baraka said, “These cops were shooting at Diallo’s Blackness” (Baraka 12). Police officer did not go to investigate why should we kill this black man, what is wrong with him. But they liked to use their guns rather their sense of humor and understanding the reason why killing an innocence person. The 4 officers who killed Diallo motto was “we own the night” (Baraka 12). This shows that the officers were openly terrorizing racial-fascist. This motto fact was resisted by the people and the officers were freed without any guilt. It seems fully racist to me that they were killing him because of his color.
In the “intersection” Janelle, black teenager who won’t give up on her grandmother health as she was on the last stage of cancer. Janelle wanted to bring her grandmother home and won’t let her stay in the hospital or nurse care. She was a hard working at her study but she falls out and got stress about her grandmother’s health. Janelle couldn’t tolerate her grandma’s health and said, “this shit I can buy on the street is better than those fucking pills. A t least with this, she will be at ease” (Intersection 23). When Janelle went to buy drugs and was on her way back home she was stopped by the police named Alex and Ricky. Alex police officer who was chasing a white suspect wearing a hoodie unfortunately Janelle got suspected.
Alex: HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM
Janelle: What I haven’t done anything
Alex: I NEED TO SEE YOUR ID
(she goes for her pockets)
DO NOT REACH YOUR PCKETS
Janelle: But you just said you want to see my ID
Alex: … TURN AROUND. TURN AROUND.
(we hear a gunshot) Phones have begun to appear, flashes of light pointing at the floor.
Ricky: REASONABLE AND EFFECTIVE, THE AMOUNT OF FORNCE WAS REASONABLE AND EFFECTIVE….
The above scene shows that Janelle was on her way home and she was stopped by the police with the doubt that she is the suspect because she was black and wearing a hoodie. This fact made the police shot and killed Janelle without any reasonable cause, without any warrant and with no justify evidence that she is the suspected. Janelle was considered a danger to them. I think police should get more practiced with how to get their real suspect because if these types of cases continue in our society we would end up with genocide. Janelle was innocent she was worried for her grandmother health, she got her something to cure her cancer but she was shot to the ground.
Racial terrorism hasn’t finished, every individual face it in different way from other individuals. The stop and frisk law is experienced by every individual from differed backgrounds. I think the idea of stop and risk is install fear in us to be ready to get checked by the police but why is police forgetting that we still have the right to say no if we don’t want to get stopped and frisked. The police are not only being trained to brutalize, hate, fear, disrespect and murder any black, yet they have been taught that they can get away with it. Again racist still have not finished even after the civil right movement. There hasn’t any change in our societies.
1.Can you understand the purpose of this paper? Is it enough understandable?
2.What makes you understand the main message of this assignment?
3.Did I support the argument well enough? yes/no and why?
4.Does any of my writing/ideas/arguments seems unclear? What should I fix? Give suggestions.
6.Does the paper go flowing? Are my ideas/examples organize?
7.Did my points/ideas meet the purpose of this paper? Why or why not?
1) I’m not sure what exactly do you mean by “Purpose”. If your intention was how well did you make a case of racial prejudice against NYPD, then you’ve done it successfully. Although there is enough space for improvements.
2) I guess the incidents that you’ve stated in your essay really helped the readers understand your message which is I think same as I mentioned in my first answer.
3) I don’t think that you really have an argument here. An argument is the exchange of two opposite views as I know it. But here, you have expressed your opinion on a certain topic. And I think that you have supported it enough by providing the examples of related incidents to establish your claim.
4) In your fourth paragraph when you mentioned the events of the play, I think that you should provide more background of the situation there. Like why Janelle was going to get that drug and how it was relevant to your main topic. I am not an authority on English writing, but I think that there are few places where you sound kinda off, because of grammar or word choices. We can discuss it more in class.
6) yeah I guess you have done a fine job in organizing your ideas and examples. However I would like you to clarify few things for me in class. Like what exactly do you mean by, “How police force overwhelmingly attacks unarmed black individual increasingly in the New York City?”. Maybe you want to simplify it. Also “The 4 officers who killed Diallo motto was “we own the night””. What do you mean by this? who’s motto was it and what did it mean?
7) Again we go back to your first question, what exactly was your purpose by writing this paper. If it was the same as I mentioned earlier. Then yeah your ideas and points indicate the same purpose. Also I think this question and question number 3, both say the same thing.
1. I think the purpose of your paper was discussing how racism is still relevant to this day. It’s is understandable but I feel that some of the points that were made were sounding a bit repetitive. For example: when you provide a text to prove the point your making. You say this is racist. Which your totally right but I feel that you don’t need to say it for each point.
2. What makes me understand the assignment is the amount of evidence that was used such as the statics, the play Intersections, also the personal case of the man who was killed. I feel that the data you have used further proves the point your making.
3. The argument can use a little work. I feel that you proved the argument of how cops still are targeting a certain race but you didn’t add the opposite arguments that you could contradict in the end of your paper.
4. There were a few grammer errors I saw but you can fix that later on.
5. The paper does have a certain flow. I liked how you added the in text citation that proved the point that was being made.
6. The ideas did meet the paper but as I mentioned before some ideas when your explaining seem a bit repetitive. In class we can talk about it.
Hira,
This is a beautifully and persuasively written piece. I particularly love your phrase “racial terrorism” in the beginning of the last paragraph, and these two sentences are golden: “America the land of freedom, but not free of discrimination n and racism. A land where innocent teenagers are being killed unarmed.” Beautifully written.
As for suggestions, I would encourage you to move away from list form and think about the transitions between your paragraphs. What I mean is, you start two of your big paragraphs (they will probably benefit from being split up) by introducing a single article, which is great in the sense that I’m glad you get into the research so much, but it would be awesome if you could integrate them more deeply into your narrative instead of going from one to the other and then back to the play with little transition. Your themes are so strong that they connect everything in your paper, but I’d like to see the actual writing do that a little bit more. Making connections between your paragraphs instead of jumping from one to the next might be very helpful with that.
Additionally, your (very true and very effective) claim that racism is about a system rather than individual manners or biases is super sharp, and I’d love to see you explore this more with Alex. Why was he (Ricky is the actor’s name, by the way, so feel free to change it to Alex in the quotes you use) repeating what he was told about reasonable use of force after he shot Janelle? How does that fit in with your argument that the system of policing, rather than individuals, drive the kinds of racist violence you’re talking about here? You know what I mean?
I’m really excited for where you take this and for the work you’ve done already! Let me know if you have further questions!