Police Interactions with Persons of Color

Effects of Constant Police Interactions

            Traffic stopovers, which are the most typical interaction between the public and the police, have become the center of debate concerning law enforcement, race, and equality in the U.S. A disproportionate share of the approximately 25 million police traffic stopovers in America per year involve African-American drivers even if blacks are no more probable to break traffic rules as compared the whites (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). Besides, Hispanics, as well as blacks, have a high probability of being stopped and searched by police officers, even though they are no more likely to be transporting contraband goods (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). The point that Blacks or Hispanics are more often stopped and searched for suspicion of ferrying drugs or contraband commodities would personally make me feel targeted if I found myself in a similar situation. There exists no empirical proof to justify that Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to commit criminal offenses than Whites. In my opinion, the whites are as much inclined to commit federal crimes such as transporting drugs as the Hispanics or Blacks. I think that this form of disparity is primarily attributed to the fact that there is a considerably higher rate of police interactions with Minorities due to the belief that Blacks and Hispanics commit a suspiciously huge share of reported crimes.

            These constant or frequent police interactions have resulted in some adverse effects, as indicated by Demby Gene’s and Saslow's works. Across the United States, law-abiding Hispanic and Black drivers are left demeaned and terrified by the unwarranted attention which they receive from the traffic police, who too frequently perceive them as criminals (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). This form of mistreatment by the police leaves the Blacks and Hispanics not only feeling angry and violated but also suspicious of the police and their intentions (Barlow & Barlow, 2018).

            This has forced activists to take to the streets to dissent against police harassment of law-abiding minorities. Demby Genes, for instance, went to the National Public Radio Press to stir the racial “Code Switch” mission where he transcribed an essay named How Black Reporters Report On Black Death for the NPR website to converse how disheartening it is for the Minorities to move from police to police victim (Demby, 2015). In his piece, Gene exhaustively examines what he terms as the “psychic remains of bathing via a stream of floating dead bodies” and searches for the resolution to dealing with such an expressive, taxing beat (Demby, 2015, p. 3). In the piece, How Black Reporters Report On Black, Gene argues that he is destroying people's misconceptions concerning the issue of police prejudice. Gene attempts to dispel the misconception that there exists a disproportionate number of minorities, especially Black individuals, facing police brutality as a result of the minorities known for committing more crimes compared to the whites (Demby, 2015).

            However, the present recordings, as well as unedited pictures of the murder of brown and black lives, have the probability of challenging stereotypical opinions of blackness as criminal, dangerous, and thuggish in a manner that earlier portraits did not (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). Contrasting to pictures taken after death, sousveillance platforms enable first-hand witnesses of police prejudice to broadcast counterchronicles concerning the Black Death by defensively counterbalancing age-old writings regarding black criminality and dangerousness (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). Reynold’s account, covered in the pictorial arena, depicts the setting of Castile’s death in a manner that makes it challenging to cite the film from its broader context: systemic racism, white panic, and racial profiling (Saslow, 2016). With the more massive transmission of Sousveillance pictures, earlier ungrievable lives of blacks are emerging to be grievable as targets of state-authorized violence (Saslow, 2016).

Risk Factors That Contributed to Diamond Reynold Committing the Crime

            The world recognized Reynold Diamond’s identity from Saslow Eli’s “For Diamond Reynolds, trying to move past 10 tragic minutes of video (The Facebook Live Film), where Diamond calmly accounted for the death of Castile Phillando fatal shooting by a police officer in Falcon Height at Min after a traffic stopover in July. Certainly, if Phillando was, for an instant, the representation of the United States Conversation concerning race and policing, then Diamond was the voice. Diamond’s film results in a police officer being arrested, subsequently stirring months of demonstration. Many citizens addressed Diamond as a champion. Diamond even wept on “Good Morning America,” expressing her grief over the loss of a loved one.

            Unbelievably, currently, Diamond, who has attained the age of 27 years, is again trending on social media. Diamond was arrested alongside other ladies due to a purported attack involving a bear spray and a hammer (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). She has been convicted of a felony assault and serves her sentence at the County prison of Ramsey. Her bail was established to be $90,000 (Barlow & Barlow, 2018). This left the public in astonishment and made them speculate what ways Diamond’s life was twisted to make her fit to commit such a crime (Barlow & Barlow, 2018).

            The answer to this concern lies in Saslow Eli’s piece, “For Diamond Reynolds, trying to move past 10 tragic minutes of video”. According to Eli, Diamond had been left without accommodation prior to when she and Phillando Castile moved in together and underwent an extensive list of challenges, even as Diamond moaned about Castile’s death. In the piece, Saslow explained that “so far, the primary result that Reynold realized in her life was the manner in which one predicament spiraled into the subsequent crisis” (Saslow, 2016, p.10). Saslow further argues that some of the factors that could have made Reynold capable of committing such a crime include the absence of her fiancé, who would take care of her daughter as she worked at night at the dollar store (Saslow, 2016). Secondly, Diamond neither had any paycheck to cater for her rent nor did she have any more colleagues in possession of a gun who would make her feel protected in St. Paul’s most unsafe region.

The Suitability of the Solutions Suggested to Diamond after Castile’s Death

            Amongst the possible solutions suggested to Diamond following Castile’s death was an independent investigation to be conducted by the Justice Department suggested by the governor (Saslow, 2016). The independent investigative team, which functions in conjunction with the Civil Oversight Authority, both serves as the gap-building means between the police unit and citizens (Weitzer, 2015). The responsibility of both teams is to ensure that the police are fair in their judgments and objectives while exercising their duties (Weitzer, 2015). The investigative team from the Justice Department, together with the Civilian Oversight Authority, are meant to deal with public complaints concerning officer misconduct and, upon functioning correctly, can both assist in holding the police officers responsible for their actions and reconstruct trust with the resident (Weitzer, 2015). However, in my view, this would not have been a better approach for addressing Castile’s death because the success of the inquiry by the independent investigators has, at times, proved to be elusive.

            Furthermore, in spite of being able sometimes robustly to investigate police misconduct, this approach would have been expensive and would require a sheer financial plan for the compensation of the independent detectives (Weitzer, 2015). Besides, studies indicate that some Civilian Oversight Authorities have no power to conduct their private investigations and instead examine the discoveries of the police unit’s internal affairs (Weitzer, 2015). Sometimes the inquiries even take a slow pace due to the lack of sheer political will (Weitzer, 2015). That said, I think this approach would not have been a better approach for Diamond to solve Castile’s death.

            Instead, I think the better approach would be the exploitation of the protests by the activists among other supporters of anti-police prejudice. For instance, the Black Lives Matter protesters who promised to lead the march against police brutality was the best solution. The protest's objective is to pay attention to the issues being raised. Upon successful demonstrations, the activist can be heard, and a solution to the problem can be formulated. In simple terms, the ultimate goal of the protest is to negotiate better a proper case relevant to the matter being raised. Critiques of protest could argue that what activists need is obvious- in this case, an end to racial inequality and police prejudice, but these are huge problems that require a clear as to which ways to address them. Therefore, in my opinion, using a protest approach would be a better solution to the case of police brutality and racial inequality, as demonstrated by Castile’s death scenario. I believe that through protests such as Black Lives Matter, activists can find a seat at the table and raise their issues so that clear pathways are generated by policymakers on how to address the concerns.

Reasons Why Reynold Taught Deanna the Survival Skills

            Terrified by scenarios where routine traffic police stopovers turn fatal, several black parents, such as Diamond Reynold, teach their kids what needs to be done whenever they are pulled over (Weitzer, 2015). The rehearsal usually involves the lowering of the vehicle window to let police officers get a clear view of the car’s interior, having the registration and license accessible, turning on the interior lights, keeping one’s hands visible, and letting the police officer know that one is obtaining the certification and license (Weitzer, 2015).

            Studies indicate that Hispanic and Black drivers within the U.S. fear the afoul of the road rules (Kivel, 2017). Furthermore, people of color and Black folks worry more regarding being stopped and searched by the police if spotted driving an excellent vehicle within an upscale or modest community or if driving a rugged wagon in a typically white community and any car type within the vicinity of a high-crime zone (Chaney & Robertson, 2015). This kind of interaction between the police and the Black individuals or the Hispanics brings a negative psychological impact that cuts across people from all walks of life, be it professional athletes or ministers, and is the reason why they rehearse the survival skills as demonstrated by Diamond to DaeAnna (Weitzer, 2015). In my view, no person deserves to be taught the so-called survival skills, be it a Black individual, a Hispanic, or a white. This is because nobody needs to be prepared to face or deal with issues of police prejudice just because of a person’s race. Preparing kids with search skills sets the basis for racial bias in a child’s mind, which in turn drifts the gap of mistrust between the community and the marginalized people. Children need to be taught that the police force exists to protect them and not harm them, as the rehearsing of the survival skill portrays.

Black Journalist Reporting on Issues Regarding Racism

            Weitzer (2015), contends that mainstream news agencies can learn much from the black journalist who holistically reports on issues concerning racism. According to Weitzer (2015), the intricacies of our society play out in those reports. Weitzer (2015), believes that transforming the depiction of Blacks within the media cannot be attained via the regular massive projects concerning racism but instead requires a more sustained and sophisticated endeavor over time.

            In my view, indeed, allowing Black people to account for issues of racism benefits the newsroom since they are exceptionally fit by life encounters to report matters of race. Similar to all specialty beats, a journalist has to nurture the sources, ascertain specialists, and learn the dominant language. According to Demby (2015), stories reported by black journalists are not just abstractions but an echo of what keeps transpiring in their personal lives.

            However, newsrooms may assist persons who might feel too close to such stories by acknowledging their desires and supporting their ambitions if they want to report stories beyond issues of racism (Wolfe & Nix, 2016). Therefore, newsroom needs to allow such persons to cover other topics where racism subjects may not be part of their ambitions, for I believe that dispatching these individuals to exclusively race topics would only amount to another form of stereotyping within the newsrooms.

Being the Only Person in the Room

            Demby Gene’s piece for Code Switch being, The Only One in the Room, is about being the only individual in a frequent decision-making team that epitomizes a single or many marginalized societies (Demby, 2015). In my experience, I relate to this thought concerning my work situation, which serves as the basis for my argument.

            The only circumstance, as Gene narrates, frequently transpires in many job settings but generally passes unmentioned (Wolfe & Nix, 2016). The one individual in the minority is enveloped by a group of persons under the majority class, for instance, a non-binary individual, an indigenous person, or a person of color surrounded at work by white persons (Wolfe & Nix, 2016). In my experience, being in this situation makes only one person feel unprotected to voice their view as it could be perceived as damaging to their rank; they are seldom given attention whenever they make proposals or contributions, but upon the off-opportunity when they express an idea and given notice, their opinions are often quickly ignored or brushed off.

            Being in this state makes the only person expected to represent their whole minority in all decisions that the broad majority groups require support on (Wolfe & Nix, 2016). This brings a dilemma: these verdicts are usually those that the only person in the minority group might view as disturbing even though they feel powerless to raise honest outlooks concerning the issue presented. Therefore, as the key to survival, only one person has to learn how to Code-switch to cope in areas that tend to be dominated by white people (Wolfe & Nix, 2016).

            One of the circumstances, when I encountered this challenge was when I was the only person of color among other staff members dominated by white folks in the editorial department. Scaling up to these ranks, I comprehended the terrible legacy of white persons ruling the production means and craving to validate and minister over creative and intellectual work by individuals of color. Upon questioning the administrator to understand the reasons why they did not promote more persons of color, the reply from the Human Resource representative was dreadful. The HR representative explained to me that the firm could never discover any person of color who is fit or capable of passing the company’s proofreading examinations. He stated that I was the only first person of color who even actually surprised the company when I passed the tests. He emphasized that persons such as me do not often emerge successfully after the first attempt, and because there existed an inadequate number to start with, there were not any to promote to my post.

            In respect to my situation, one can contemplate the burden that individuals bare when they are the only person who epitomizes something more significant than themselves, whether they want to or do not want to do so.

Living as a Person of Color in America

            As a person who has encountered my reasonable stake of harsh losses over the past few years, I can resonate with the fact that these forms of public catastrophes (involving police targeting people of color in America) feel similarly agonizing and personal. Reynold Diamond describes the experience as dramatic and traumatic and one that we, people of color, have to undergo every day (Saslow, 2016).

            Unrecognized by many people, these public calamities are settling into the psyche of Brown Americans, Black Americans as well as American immigrants (Chaney & Robertson, 2015). They are entangled with our losses, which we frequently perceive as shaded by a similar tint of unconscious cultural and racial prejudice, and if this sounds traumatic, it is that much more unsound yet no less factual an occurrence to experience.

            After watching the 10 minutes film of Castile’s murder by a police officer in the presence of his girlfriend and DaeAnna (their 4-year-old daughter), I found myself mutely yet obligatorily sobbing at the sight of people of color (especially kids) in public. This made me realize how vulnerable the Black American Kids or Hispanic Kids within American society are on a daily basis due to the inability to be protected by their parents from police mistreatment. I involuntarily contemplated how unfathomable it would be to lose a relative in such a manner.        The experience is an unjust circumstance that so many Blacks or Hispanics living in America experience every day. They are the common indications of the trauma and emotional torture that, for a long time, mainly had gone unnoticed. Based on the facts stated above, I think that encountering drama and trauma each day does not amount to a fair assessment of living as a person of color within the U.S.  

Lessons Learned

            In taking these lessons, I have learned that my insight into racism is not as precise as I believed. I have discovered that racism manifests itself in several means and hence necessitates a scope of solutions. For instance, with respect to the extrajudicial killings, if prejudice amongst the police officers is the contributing factor in making them murder people of color as compared to the white folks who pose the same threats, then the solution could rest upon training and hiring process. This means firing the officers who exhibit bias, training them not to practice prejudice, and, of course, examining the recruits for bias. However, if the discrepancy is due to the constant interactions with people of color and police officers because of the notion that people of color commit a disproportionately massive portion of reported law breakings, then the solution could be to deal with the general causes of the crime discrepancy such as urban poverty. The class has further helped me to understand that the many challenges experienced by Black Americans are also shared by the Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians living in America.

            The lesson, however, did not exhaustively capture the potential solutions to issues of racism within the American community. This makes me perceive it as the least essential lesson given in class. Despite this, I am glad to have taken this course because as much as the ethnic study has not landed me a job, it has brought me a proper sense of myself, my duty, and my heritage as a person of color living in the U.S.

References

Barlow, D. E., & Barlow, M. H. (2018). Police in a multicultural society: An American story. Waveland Press.

Chaney, C., & Robertson, R. V. (2015). Armed and dangerous? An examination of fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police. Journal of Pan African Studies, 8(4), 45-78.

Demby, G. (2015). How Black Reporters Report On Black Death. National Public Radio Press, 3.

Kivel, P. (2017). Uprooting Racism-: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. New Society Publishers.

Saslow, E. (2016). For Diamond Reynolds, trying to move past 10 tragic minutes of video. The Washington Post, 10.

Weitzer, R. (2015). American policing under fire: Misconduct and reform. Society, 52(5), 475-480.

Wolfe, S. E., & Nix, J. (2016). The alleged “Ferguson Effect” and police willingness to engage in a community partnership. Law and human behavior, 40(1), 1.