With the progress of human civilization, there are a lot of problems in the world now. Like poverty and homelessness, climate change, overpopulation, and so on. But I think in the United States, the major social issue is discrimination. Some people think that the white population is dominant lead to racial discrimination. I disagree with it, I think that’s because everyone’s different minds and some wrong ideas lead to this.
The last black affirmative movement took place on May 25, 2020. That’s because George Floyd was arrested by a policeman who put his knee on his neck for at least eight minutes and 15 seconds, resulting in the death of George Floyd. Because of this, it led to large-scale riots and protests across the country.
Afterward, there was research showing that the number of black Americans killed by the police is disproportionate. From studying “Prejudice and Discrimination”. They all believed that because of the white police racist the black people, so the number of black people killed by the police is disproportionate. Moreover, the article “What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work”, says stereotype and prejudice may lead the police to subconsciously think that black people are dangerous. Furthermore, from the article “Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex” and “UN Committee condemns the U.S. for racial disparity, police brutality”, we could tell that police violence against black people is also reflected in people of different ages. We can see that black people are the most likely to be shot in Ferguson because as a whole 67% of Ferguson’s population is black and 29% is white, a stark contrast to Ferguson’s police department, which is 94% white. Also, more data show that in 2013 blacks accounted for 86% of all traffic stops in Ferguson and were two times as likely to be searched compared to whites.”
But there were some different voices. Rajiv Sethi from Barnard College, he agrees with the idea that the police use excessive violence, but he doesn’t think it’s the result of racial discrimination. In the article “Fear And Racial Stereotypes Fuel Police Use Of Excessive Force”, he says, “The only justification for lethal force is legitimate fear”. He believes that fear may be one of the reasons why the police make extreme decisions. On the other hand, Black people make the police feel more threatened than white people or other race people. I think this conclusion is based on the current situation of the majority of black people, most of them lack good education. This is largely due to the government’s lack of attention to poor people. Rajiv Sethi also mentions that cities with a high incidence of the fatal police force are not necessarily the cities with the greatest ethnic differences, “‘The picture is more complicated than commonly perceived because the states with the highest incidents of lethal force are states like Colorado…, which have below national average African American populations. The same with Oklahoma, West Virginia, for instance,’ he says. ‘But the racial disparities in victimization are not as great as in the Northeast. And then in the Northeast, you have states with relatively low rates of killing, but where the racial disparities are extreme.’”
Overall, I think all of the words above are the reasons that cause racial discrimination. In my opinion, to solve or reduce the occurrence of such incidents, we need the strong support of government departments. Setting up police training courses and psychological counseling is the most important thing at present, which will greatly reduce the police’s abuse of lethal weapons and racial discrimination. The government should allow more poor children to receive free higher education so that they can get rid of the current predicament. This will help to change people’s inherent prejudice against black people and is more conducive to the progress of society and human civilization
