User:AndrewLung/Criminal stereotype of African Americans

Andrew Lung

University of California Irvine

Criminal Stereotype of African Americans

Racial tensions have escalated in the United States in recent years, prompting the development of human rights movements such as Black Lives Matter, which seek to expose the injustices done to African Americans and demand social reforms as mitigation. The criminalization of African Americans can be seen in their representation in popular culture, racial profiling by the police, the disproportionate use of lethal force of the police, and disparities in incarcerations by the US criminal justice system.

The criminalization of African Americans is evident from their representation in popular culture. Most content on popular media portrays the black male persona as the gangster rapper, thug, or brute who live in crime-filled communities. For instance, in most films, African Americans are often brutish gangsters who engage in crime and drug dealing. Moreover, news programs in the US tend to represent African Americans as the perpetrators of crime more than they represent them as the victims of actual crimes. For instance, in the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, 80% of the time African American evacuees were shown alongside caption of looting or wordings that contained the word “looting” in them, giving viewers the impression that African Americans are criminals (Dahmen, Miller, & Morris, 2018). This disparity in representation consequently promotes the stereotype that African Americans are criminals.

Racial profiling is proof of the criminalization of African Americans. Police officers tend to stop and search motorists more frequently than they do white drivers. In 2018, 28% of the people who were stopped by Los Angeles police officers were black, even though black people only comprised 9% of the city’s population (BondGraham, 2020). These statistics demonstrate that the police tend to profile African Americans more than Caucasians. Furthermore, according to Hester and Gray (2018), African Americans who are tall are more frequently stopped, searched, and arrested by police officers than other black people since they are perceived as greater threats. This disparity in stoppages, searches, and arrests shows that most police officers deem African Americans more likely of being criminals than white suspects. In such a manner, it is adequate proof of the criminalization of African Americans in the United States.

The criminalization of African Americans is also seen in police officers’ use of force when subduing suspects. Police officers tend to be more forceful when dealing with African American suspects than they are with white ones. One of the best evidences for this fact is the shooting of Tamir Rice in 2014. Rice, a 12-year-old African American boy, was shot down by an officer named Timothy Loehmann at the Cudell Recreation Center park of Cleveland, Ohio. Tamir had been playing with a toy gun at the park when someone called 911 and reported him (Stone & Socia, 2019). A few seconds after arriving at the scene, Loehmann shot Rice in the chest after the young boy pointed the toy gun at him. Although Rice was only a young boy, the white police officer perceived him as a great threat and shot. If he were dealing with a white boy, he might have been more interested in investigating further before shooting. Nonetheless, the police viewed Rice as a black male with a gun rather than a boy with a toy (Stone & Socia, 2019). Such use of unnecessary lethal force on African American males demonstrates that they are criminalized.

Lastly, the criminalization of African Americans is seen in national disparities in sentencing. African Americans tend to be sentence to more time than white offenders for the same crimes. In fact, studies show that the jail time of African Americans tends to be 60% longer than that of white Americans (Bridges, 2019). In addition, black males are approximately 5.9 times more likely to be incarcerated than white offenders even if they are of juvenile age (Bridges, 2019). This disparity shows that African Americans are criminalized in the United States and this perception has made the US criminal justice system biased against them.

References

Legewie, J. (2016). Racial profiling and use of force in police stops: How local events trigger periods of increased discrimination. American Journal of Sociology, 122(2), 379-424.

US Census Bureau. (n.d.). Quick facts. US Census Bureau. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI225218

Hester, N., & Gray, K. (2018). For Black men, being tall increases threat stereotyping and police stops. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2711-2715.

BondGraham, D. (2020). Black people in California are stopped far more often by police, major study proves. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/02/california-police-black-stops-force

Dahmen, N. S., Miller, A., & Morris, D. L. (2018). The depth of Hurricane Katrina imagery: A longitudinal study through the lens of commemorative journalism and iconicity. Communication Reports, 31(3), 131-142.

Stone, R., & Socia, K. M. (2019). Boy with toy or black male with gun: An analysis of online news articles covering the shooting of Tamir Rice. Race and Justice, 9(3), 330-358.

Bridges, K. M. (2019). White privilege and white disadvantage. Va. L. Rev., 105, 449.