Black Men and Public Space - Article Analysis Essay

Introduction

The article "Black Men and Public Space" highlights several incidences of racialism and profiling that a young black man underwent after moving to New York. In an incident that left him shocked, the author narrates how a white woman opted to run for no apparent reason just because he was walking closely behind her (Staples, 2). The woman ran because of the prevalent stereotyping and racial profiling associated with people of color. Despite being several decades ago, the article unravels present-day racial profiling that seems as prevalent today as it was in the past. Cases of black people, Muslims, and Hispanics are ordinary in the typical day America akin to the times in the article by Staples.

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Racial profiling is still prevalent in the modern-day society as it was in the highlighted article. It is defined as the act of targeting or suspecting an individual of a particular race basing on how a certain race or ethnic group behaves (Barteme,2). Examples would be the assumption that every young black man could be a criminal, or every Muslim could be a terrorist .in one of the incidences, Staples recollects how he entered an affluent jewelry store near north side, and instead of being attended to, the white lady disappeared and returned with a security dog (Staples, 2). The author excused himself and left. The above profiling incident is akin to a recent police incident written by Davis, where a police officer in Clayton town rounded up nine black students leaving a restaurant, he then made them produce their receipts of payment before returning with them to the cafe to confirm that they had paid (2). The nine students were racially profiled because of a recent occurrence where students ate and dashed out of the restaurant without making payments. The two cases, despite being decades apart, share a single similarity; both poses racial profiling traits.

Several studies consistently agree on the prevalence of contemporary racial profiling. A report by the United States Justice Department (USJD) asserts that between 2012 and 2014, of all the vehicles, stops by the police, black people made up 85 % of them. Of the same population, 93 of the arrest were of black people. A different survey in North Carolina revealed that of the 4.5 million traffic stops, black Americans and Latinos were likely to be stopped and searched compared to whites in the following ratios, 5.4, 4.1, and 3.1, respectively (Simoiu, Camelia, Corbett-Davies, and Sharad, 6). what makes the incident racial profiling is the fact that the majority of these stops and searches are primarily based on the assumption that the stopped individuals could be illegally armed or carrying contraband because they are either black or Latinos. A study in 2015 showed how the majority of the racial profiling stops were pretext stops (USDJ, 1). This is stops made by police on suspicion that the individual is carrying a weapon, drug, or suspicion of any other crime. Also, 87% of the pretext stops yielded negative (2).

Albeit evident cases and recurrences of racial profiling and racism in the United States, a group of individuals still reject its existence, terming it as a myth. An article by Jelani carries several opinions of individuals who did not think racism or profiling was not a pertinent issue. Some allude to the number of police stops to the high number of black and Hispanics in crime and drug-related cases (2). This way, they feel the police are justified in profiling since the majority of times, the individual in particular races is often the criminals. Several proponents argue that black crime has been high in the course of history compared to white crimes, thus the justification for profiling. However, such sentiments are not true; data shows a decline of black offenders by 49% from 1993 to 2014 (Jelani, 3). Therefore, the assumption that black crimes are on the rise is biased and untrue.

Of great concern is the fact that racism and profiling affect many aspects of the victims, including their social, career, economic, and academic life. One of the profiling incidents happened to a young student of mixed race in Texas recently. The complainant notes that he was suspended two weeks form his graduation and tell to shave their deck locks, or he will not be allowed to graduate despite the dreadlocks having been approved as formal in the past (Janelle, 1). It is quoted that the university changed its school dressing code recently and suspended the student, yet the dreadlocks are part of their culture.

From the incidences above, it is quite evident that racial profiling and racialism are still common in society today. In conclusion, it is a story of a 17-year-old black boy who was innocently shot dead by a policeman after an altercation. Martin Trayvon was walking home with the dad when they were stopped by a policeman (Blow, 1). However, the incident turned south when the police officer fired with no justifiable reason. The policeman went to trial for murder but was set free with a self-defense appeal. The main question, though, was, how could it be self-defense yet the two black men were unarmed and stopped on being ordered to. Precisely, these occurrences are similar to what the author of the article Black Men and Public Spaces was writing about.

Works Cited

Bartelme, Tony. "Pull Over Five Things to Remember When You See the Blue Light" The Post and Courier." The Post and Courier, 31 July 2015, www.postandcourier.com/archives/pull-over-five-things-to-remember-when-you-see-the/article_c898fb10-8905-5eba-ba01-7b2d15312fb4.html.

Blow, Charles. "The curious case of Trayvon Martin." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia, 17 Mar. 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/opinion/blow-the-curious-case-of-trayvon-martin.html. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Cobb, Jelani. "No such thing as racial profiling." The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2014, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/eric-garner-racial-profiling. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Davis, Chad. "One year after IHOP incident, St. Louis teenager reflects on racial profiling experience." Pulitzer Center, 13 Dec. 2019, pulitzercenter.org/reporting/one-year-after-ihop-incident-st-louis-teenager-reflects-racial-profiling-experience. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Griffith, Janelle. "Black Texas teen told to cut his dreadlocks to walk at graduation." NBC News, 23 Jan. 2020, www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-texas-teen-told-cut-his-dreadlocks-order-walk-graduation-n1120731. Accessed 29 Apr. 2020.

Simoiu, C., et al. "The problem of infra-marginality in outcome tests for discrimination." The Annals of Applied Statistics, vol. 11, no. 3, 2017, pp. 1193-1216, doi:10.1214/17-aoas1058.

Staples, Brent. "Black Men and Public Space." Life Studies (1992): 2-32. Retrieved from https://1.cdn.edl.io/gRYcQlJjaTKmNGvXM9P1yQ7Tj5K1PlQuPU9meVPHkmz4ma0h.pdf

United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. "Investigation of The Ferguson Police Department." March 4, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf