In New York City, an average of seven Latin Americans were killed a year between 1986 to 1989 but, in 1990, that number increased greatly. In that year, twenty three Latin Americans were killed by police gunfire. When asked how he felt about racism being involved in police brutality, Yussuf Naimkly of the University of Regina Commented: “Excessive police force against blacks has always been tolerated, because as a formally enslaved minority African Americans are trapped in a cultural context specifically designed to inhibit their development and thus minimize their threat to white hegemony”. Another shocking incident of police brutality occurred in Reynoldsberg Ohio. A group of offices named themselves “S.N.A.T” squad.
In support of McCleskey’s argument, LDF presented the United States Supreme Court with strong statistical evidence showing that race played a pivotal role in the Georgia capital punishment system. LDF introduced a landmark study by Professor David Baldus, who examined over 2,000 Georgia murder cases. Baldus concluded that in capital cases, the race of the defendant and victim determined who was sentenced to death. Specifically, Professor Baldus found that that African-Americans were more likely to receive a death sentence than any other defendants, and that African-American defendants who killed white victims were the most likely to be sentenced to death. His findings indicated that racial bias permeated the Georgia capital punishment system.
Did The End Of Slavery, Mean The End Of Inequality By 1945? (1000 Words) Over 80 years had passed since Slavery was abolished in America and many things had happened in attempts to rid the country of inequality between the Civil War and the Victory of the Second World War. Even after all this time blacks were not completely equal and racism still existed due to heavy segregation. Before the 1860’s the blacks found themselves under slavery to the white Americans. The blacks were treated in an inhumane style, receiving violent beating and extreme manual labour for many hours of the day, minimum amounts of food and poor living conditions.
How far do you agree that African Americans were treated as second class citizens in the USA in 1950? I agree completely that African Americans were treated as ‘second class’ citizens, I agree with this because of racial segregation, mostly in the form of Jim Crow laws. These laws are the way a law has been brought in to discriminate coloured people. In the southern states, legal segregation was widespread. Also, the vast majority of black Americans were disenfranchised by grandfather clauses and literacy tests which made it very hard for black Americans to vote.
First, females are rarely sentenced to death and executed, even though women committed 20 percent of all murders that have occurred in recent years. Second, a disproportionate number of nonwhites are sentenced to death and executed. A black man who kills a white person is 11 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man who kills a black person is. In Texas 1991, blacks made up 12 percent of the population, but 48 percent of the prison population and 55.5 percent of those on death row are black. Before the 1970's then the death penalty for rape was still used in many states, no white men were guilty of raping nonwhite women, whereas most black offenders found guilty of raping a white woman were executed.
Another thing portrayed prejudice in the novel, is the way whites talk to blacks. "I said come here nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me, I gotta nickel for you”(Lee241). Referring to an African American as a "nigger" is completely disrespectful and making them seem like they are lower than the whites are, which is not the case. No person wants to be spoken to in that manner, white or black. This word is used immensely throughout the novel, especially during the trial.
With a national population of over 304 million people, that is around 16,000 murders for 2008 alone. Admittedly, not all of these murders occurred in states where the death penalty is in use, however, of the ten states with the highest murder rates, eight of them are death penalty states (FBI, 2008). It is true that violent crime trends have decreased over the past five years, however, it is important to remember that the violent crimes being committed the most are in areas where the criminal is risking death at the hands of the state. This alone shows that criminals have no regard for a state’s policy on the death sentence, which proves that the penalty has lost its effectiveness as a deterrent. The death penalty has been the most severe punishment for crimes since the 18th century BCE, when King Hammurabi of Babylon held 25 crimes by which a criminal could be put to death.
Over the past century, murder rates have gone up a record high leaving the death penalty as the only option to stop murders. There are some criminologists who believe that capital punishment does not prevent crime. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment due to the court case Furman vs. Georgia, that made murder rates higher then what they usually were. Many murders are caused by those who know each other i.e., relatives, friends, and acquaintances. Arguments go back and forth whether capital punishment is “cruel and unusual punishment” because of the torture people on death row go through.
Throughout the years racism has been a common problem and is happening all around us. In earlier times black people were used as slaves and did have little to no rights at all, but now discrimination between blacks and whites is illeagal and we are all supposed to have equal rights. Although the discrimination is illeagal it has happened in the judical system in the past that juries and other people have made their decision based on the defendants race. Like in the case of Tom Robinson from the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” and in the case of Stephen Lawrence the verdict seems to have been based mainly on their colors. So that leads me thinking if people of all races will ever be equal in the justice system and to the rest of the world.
Most of the people of Maycomb were unjust and ignorant when it came to the most basic rights of the African Americans. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy,…Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit them, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.”(Page 98 Atticus) This citation is the focal point of the novel. Tom Robinson, a black man who did no wrong, as all evidence proved yet he was still found guilty. Atticus Finch was one of a few who believed in ‘justice for all’. Atticus was mocked and shunned for defending a black man yet he never retaliated.