Recently there have been events involving police brutality in America which are thought to be caused by racist mindsets. These particular events led to an uproar of protesters and angry citizens fed up with the seemingly never-ending discrimination against a skin color.
The world-wide known police shooting of unarmed, 18 year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, alarmingly heightened the concern and questioning of racism in America, and why it still seems to be so present. Since the tragedy, more police brutality against African-Americans has been recognized. Protesters began to flood the streets and called for attention against unjust police brutality. Over 140,000 Americans supported a petition to the administration of Barack Obama calling for the “Mike Brown Law”, asking the government to sign into law and set aside funds to require all state, county, and local police, to wear a camera.
Journalist and writer Adam Hudson states that, “about 40 percent of the U.S prison population is African-American while African-Americans are only 13% of the U.S population. African-Americans are disproportionately arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses, even though blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates”. He gives his opinion saying, “racism hasn’t gone away in America. It’s just changed its shape and form throughout American history.”
We see racism in a subtler form in 2014. We see it in YouTube comments, and comedy shows and movies portraying black stereotypes. Though this is a far reach from the extreme discrimination in past decades, it is still discrimination and isn’t any less harmful or damaging. Society is now becoming aware of the racism still saturating America and it is being fought.
It would be incredible if the next generations could grow in a society that doesn’t have such a discriminatory mind. In the chaos and devastation that lingered in the Ferguson streets, photographer Natalie Keyssar had the chance to experience the commotion. In response to her time spent documenting the local citizen’s thoughts and being thrown into demonstrations, she states, “I think that when we look back on Ferguson it will be seen as a moment in U.S. history when the tides of public opinion finally began to change about the deaths of young black men (and women) at the hands of police in America. These incidents have been tragically common for my whole life, and Ferguson, as a community, seems to collectively be saying ‘we’ve had enough’, and for once, the whole world is watching”. I personally couldn’t have phrased it better for myself.
Chloe Griffith
