Civil Rights Blog - Police Brutality

Police brutality is a problem that is deeply tied to racism and has become prominent in our country especially in the 20th and 21st century. This brutality can take the form of beating and sometimes murder. People of all races, ethnicities, ages, and gender have been subject to this brutality, but especially in the United States, the main group that is a target to this is African Americans. There is an 85 percent higher rate of black drivers being pulled over than white drivers. This in itself is an example of the racism we see in day to day life. People are pulled over for no reason and sometimes threatened and shot for some reason. There is also commonly excessive use of force, verbal violence, and unlawful arrest despite the polices duty of protecting citizens. These things happened long before the 1960's when white people finally started to become more aware of this problem occurring. Brutality such as this is a direct violation of peoples civil rights, but also of human rights including the right to live in situations where people are killed by this, and the right to equality. Being treated in ways like this is in no way equal or fair to anyone and is a great form of discrimination against African Americans. As these problems have become more noticeable people have used social media, movies, and books as ways to fight against it. For example, The Hate U Give is a book, turned into a movie, based off of the shooting of a black teenager without reason, by a white police officer. This is just one example of the many we can see through different media of how people have been affected by this violation of rights. Sadly it is somewhat common to hear on the news about teenagers who were unarmed and shot by police without good reason, events like this have appeared all through the 20th century and have given inspiration for violence against these problems. Although people have become more aware of this problem and these violations they are still occurring all over the United States, recognizing this problem is a start to trying to find solutions and ways to work around this and furthermore to stop racism in our country and around the world.

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