Author: YueMin

Since the dawn of the United States, racial inequality has plagued this country. Historically speaking, we had many racism laws implanted in our system and we had forgotten about them all. This caused the built up tension between different races in the United States. In the recent years, all these tension had exploded and became a national movement. “The Black Lives Matter” movement was a new wave of modern civil rights. More African-Americans were seeking better treatment with the police and less discrimination in governmental programs.

Many experts were in doubt that government programs could narrow today’s racial gaps. Harsh laws in petty crime and drugs caused incarnation population to quadruple. Minority, often Hispanics and African-Americans, was the main targets for police’s search. In New York City alone, Blacks were the subject of half of the Stop-and-Frisk policy. As more and more minority was in jail, family structure outside was heavily restructured. The lack of father figure and breadwinner in the family forced male teenagers to join gangs. They forfeited their education because the public schools in the area were usually very bad. Schools did not have funding to provide all the students with the same education quality as the majority White neighborhood. It was hard for any students to stay focus in school when they were surrounded by violence and drug. Only seven percent of Black high school students went to college comparing to 33 percent of White students. Many Black students spent their time outside of the education system in seek of income from crime. Once they went to jail, it was almost impossible for them to reenter the workforce or even continue their educations. Therefore, many politicians has suggested to implant more programs to allow disadvantageous students to continue their educations or create new job opportunities that were willing to accept them.

“Black Lives Matter” movement was the result of police militarization and widen racial gaps. The deep misunderstanding between Black communities and the police were finally set off after a record amount of police shooting footages surfaced on the internet. These phone videos were named the “C-Span of the streets”. It did helped the public to see how police was over-enforcing; however, it also impeded police’s ability to do his or her job. Current situation was like the old time when White fascists would lychee on African-Americans. The Jim Crow laws were actually still lingered around in today’s society. Blacks and other minority often faced discrimination in education, housing, jobs and etc. For example, the GI Bill after World War II was only limited to White veterans. Even though the bill should extend to every veterans, but only the White received college fund, housing mortgages, and chances to climb to middle class.

In short, the racial inequality could not be narrowed within the upcoming years (at least not with the President we have right now). The social gap between each ethnic group could only be narrowed from us within. Government programs could bring minority out of the poverty by giving them chances to learn new skills and escaped the ghetto. But there was no government programs could erase racial prejudice within our hearts.

Gang is a very unfamiliar term for me. I did learn about various types of gangs in New York when I was in elementary but that was about it. Living in peaceful neighborhood, people often forget about people in those rough neighborhoods. My last impression of gangs remains in violence outbreaks and distinctive clothing. However, Christina Hoag gave us the most recent update on how gangs work now. The fist gang ever appeared in 16th century, England. In the United States, gangs first appeared after the Revolutionary War to gain territory. After the mass immigration waves, immigrants began to form their own gangs for protection. The most famous one was the Latinos gang. Their connection with other Latino gangs provided more issues here.

As time has passed on, gang become more sophisticated. They no longer relied on drug and illegal weapon dealings, they move their businesses to more lucrative trades. For example, more and more gangs are set their hands in prostitution, human trafficking, online fraud etc. According to National Gang Intelligence Center, there is a 40 percent increase in gang membership since 2009. They find that, “Gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions and up to 90 percent in several others.” (434) Most violence incidents have connections to gang rivals. This directly cause to have more victims on the science because there will be more firearms and more use of synthetic drug. Teens are often the victims between the gang violence. They seek identity and protection which sometimes their homes cannot offer. Gangs become their second home. This is the case for both boys and girls. Experts has seen a rising number in female participation in gang activities. It is unknown why there is more female participation, but police often overlook the fact that women can commit violence acts as well. Additional to more female involvement, internet also become a strong weapon for the gangs. Because of the exponential growth of the social media, gangs start to use social media to recruit new members and wage wars against their rival gangs. Teens use internet a lot so it is easy to influence them over the internet. Rap and hip-hop music glorify the lifestyle of gangsters which can strike a false impression.

In order to prevent the growth of gangs, it is important to start with the youth population. They are often lure by the cool outlook of the gang. I find the Youth PROMISE Act is a good way to start because it teaches kids about the gangs and help rival gangs to negotiate when there is an issue. It is necessary to prevent kids from entering gangs because gangs are fueled by youth to commit crimes. At the same time, these youths can achieve higher education so they can bring their own family to a better neighborhood. It will also save taxpayer money from sending more people to the prison.

Racial profiling has a long history in the past. Since the ratification of Thirteenth Amendment, African-Americans did not receive the proper respect within the society. They fought against the Jim Crow laws and protested to earn their civil rights. Hispanics and Mexicans also had to fight against injustice when Texas became a state. Even though they were the indigenous people there for generation, the white imperialism over their land made them like the foreigners. The treaty after the Mexico-America War did not grant them citizenships right away. White settlers treated them unfairly and deported them as illegal immigrants.

In today’s society, Hispanics and African-Americans are still the main population subjected to racial profiling. For example, “… 53 percent of those stopped were African-Americans and 32 percent Hispanics.” (384) under New York’s Stop-and-Frisk law. These numbers are alarming high for two minority groups. Some experts argued that this law helped New York to lower the murder rate. But in reality, there is not much difference in murder rate with and without the Stop-and-Frisk law. This law can only build more distrust between police and minority community. The development of distrust is bad for the growth of the society overall. When the people started to doubt the integrity of police, this caused people to question the motive of police for anything. This is hard for police to perform their services and start more active patrolling.

Court’s involvement in racial profiling is helpful to set up a statement for the public. Nevertheless, it is up to police to enforce the decision. Often times, the police tends to ignore the statement because they are very “stressed” on the job. It is easier to write on paper than acting it out. I agree with a statement in Urban Issues, “… some racial profiling critics say remedies may be more effective if crafted by law enforcement agencies themselves.” (387) If the police department can set up the requirements to stop a person, then it will become more lucid to every police. Police departments should also trained police more strategy to de-escalate the situations. Body camera can also help the police force to learn from their actions. Many cases in Black Lives Matter movement can be de-escalated. I strongly believe that a police’s life is as important as a citizen’s life. With more friendly approaches, many cases can be solved with no causality. Personally I just found Tamir Rice case outrageous. How can possibly a 12 years old hurt anyone even with a real gun? Any 12 years old would be scared if a police tells them to do anything.

Racial profiling will not end unless there is no more prejudgment in this world. We can only try to reduce racial profiling with more police training and technology to check the power of police.