Scope: I am looking to dissect the underlying roots and causes of police brutality from the late twentieth century to present day. Whites discriminating and being afraid of blacks has been existent in history for an extremely long time, but the idea of police brutality is a relatively recent one and in 1991, a taxi driver named Rodney King was brutally beaten by the Los Angeles Police Department after he refused to pull his car over for speeding. King became the face of police brutality in America and this event caused many aftermath riots, which led to people being killed and the California National Guard to be called in. King had many quotes after this beating, one main quote being, “can’t we all just get along?”
A major reason why police brutality exists is due to the fear of something different, which leads to discrimination. This fear causes law enforcement officers, who are predominantly white, to discriminate against these blacks in a way that has caused severe harm and possibly death. The term police brutality is defined as excessive force used by officers where it is not legal. The majority of this police brutality occurs in poor, black urban neighborhoods because the conditions promote crime and these urban neighborhoods are extremely segregated. These conditions strike fear into the white officers, which cause the officers to perform illegitimate searches or in a more severe case, excessive force.
In my opinion, nothing will change unless every race or ethnicity removes their ignorance and learns about each other, such as cultures, by becoming more empathetic toward one another. This process of destroying the ignorance of our society will begin to vanquish the fear of something different. This will allow more blacks to be involved in political opportunities, and also in law enforcement, which will overall reduce the amount of police brutality in America.
Analytical Questions: The starting point or question for me has to be why cannot we all get along? If we learn to throw out this discrimination, this hatred, and this ignorance, will that be enough to stop racism and police brutality? Why does this hatred occur in the first place? Is America indeed moving forward with the relationships between whites and blacks or does white supremacy still exist in our country? America is a country built off of immigrants and we seem to deny that now to people of other races because the U.S. makes it extremely difficult for foreigners to live sufficiently in the U.S. There will be more blacks than whites because the black and population is growing rapidly, so why cannot we stop this discrimination and brutality now or else what is happening could completely reverse from all whites being in power and using excessive force to blacks holding the power and exercising excessive force on whites.
Originality: This paper will support the numerous examples of police brutality recently in the U.S. by establishing the roots or the underlying problems of each situation, and building on the fact that fear and discrimination caused these tragic events to occur. My paper is different from previous work because I am going to look at the domino effect of each recent case of police brutality in America and find the reasons why there was excessive force in the first place. I aim to focus also on the ignorance of both whites and blacks, which we closely interpreted from DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk.
Practicality: There are many secondary sources available to me on this subject, especially using the databases and books in the library. Not only are there sources on police brutality, but also the racism and discrimination behind it. These sources will provide specific evidence and detail to support my argument that white police officers hatred of blacks leads to excessive force, which begins with the ignorance of not knowing about the culture of blacks. This ignorance then leads to fear on some level of something different. I will also be able to use the recent events of police brutality and the evidence and results from these horrific cases to further support my arguments as well. The case on Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York City, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in Cleveland, are just some recent examples that will support my arguments that fear and discrimination occurred for the officers, which lead to excessive force and in these cases death for the victims.
Bibliography:
Chaney, Cassandra, and Ray Robertson. “Racism and Police Brutality in
America.” Journal of African American Studies 17, no. 4 (December 2013): 480. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File, EBSCOhost (accessed October 2, 2015).
Chaney, Cassandra, and Ray V. Robertson. “‘Can We All Get Along?’ Blacks’
Historical and Contemporary (In) Justice With Law Enforcement.” Western Journal of Black Studies 38, no. 2 (Summer2014 2014): 108-122. Race Relations Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed October 1, 2015).
Hays, Zachary R. Police Use of Excessive Force in Disorganized Neighborhoods. LFB
Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2011.
Holmes, Malcom D. “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil
Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities.” Criminology 38, no. 2. (05, 2000): 343-367.
Weatherspoon, Floyd D. African American Males and the Law: Cases and Materials.
University Press of America, 1998.
Max, this is a great modern issue to look at and dissect. I think that you can and should try to find primary sources to back your claims that the underlying roots of discrimination are based off of fear, intimidation, etc., because these are emotions, and are usually unique for different people. Secondary sources cannot look into the thought processes as much, which it looked like you were going to analyze, but they will be helpful for other aspects of your research. Some of your analytical questions, for example “America making it harder for foreigners to live sufficiently” and “there will be more blacks than whites” should be supported by data and statistics, which can be found. I liked your ideas and conclusions, and I think with more research, this will be a strong paper.
Max,
I loved your initial question of why we cant all get along. I believe that discrimination is a very current and real issue in the states, making this topic one that will provide tons of resources. I think it is great that you have your location and time period already decided, your topic is concise and easy to follow.
Max- This was a well written paper proposal and I enjoyed your flow of ideas. The topic of police brutality has been a major issue in the news, especially because of the riots that sparked after the death of several African Americans. You present many specific cases, which will help you develop many interesting ideas in your final paper.
I like that you’ve taken a bigger topic–racism–and found your focus on a specific part of it–police brutality. It’s both practical and since, as you said, it’s a fairly modern issue, originality will be within close grasp as well. Great job!
A few small suggestions: in your scope, I think it’ll be important to make it clear in the first part that your focus is the racist aspect of the issue–police brutality is a huge issue globally, and it certainly isn’t limited to race.
As for the overall tone, I think in some parts of your proposal, your arguments will become stronger if you become less personal. You seemed to tilt a little to the emotional side, and while that may be your honest response, it might not be as effective as you wish when it comes to convincing people. Rephrasing the questions into a more formal, analytical tone, adding some more practical questions and attempting to answer some of them will, I think, help your paper advance. Also, taking out some of the “In my opinion”s might lend more credibility to your work.
This is a really good topic and well written proposal. I agree that this one of the biggest problems of America today. I like how you are trying to find the root of the problem because obviously attempts to stop police brutality have failed. So by going back to where this ignorance comes from will be a good solution. The only thing i would fix would to explain some solutions to putting an end to the ignorance to give the reader an idea of what they are. Also you should look up Shaun King he is a big advocate for “Black Lives Matter” writes a lot of very informative pieces on law enforcement violence.