Minutes after news broke of a fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the public outcry for justice for African Americans began. Since then, it has grown louder and more prominent with the continued problematic interactions between police and African Americans. As the statistic for deaths among African Americans by the hands of law enforcement continues to rise, the death of Michael Brown, along with many others such as Sandra Bland and Philando Castile, pose questions about the unjust and unfair actions by police. Police brutality is corrupt and serves as a model of how racialized police violence is a form of systemic and structural formality.
The history of the treatment of African Americans in The United States is not a joyful one. Dating back to slavery, people of color have been publicly discriminated against. If you were African American in America during the early to mid-1900’s, you were in the middle of discrimination at its peak where you could be lynched, burned alive, and even beaten to death. Although segregation and lynching practices are now illegal, it seems that history is repeating itself. Racism has taken a different form in our society today. In an article titled “Police Brutality Is Modern Lynching-And You May Be A Part Of It”, Garcia provides quotes from an interview with Judith Butler. Butler talks about how during slavery “black lives were worth a fraction of a human life, and lives that mattered more were more human, more worthy, more deserving of life and freedom, where freedom meant minimally the freedom to move and thrive without being subjected to coercive force” (Butler). I agree with Butler because police brutality is a similar representation of slavery but in modern times. This idea can be drawn from how we see African Americans treated by people of power.
During the period of slavery, white people of power would enslave African Ame...