Robin Sheriff’s book Dreaming Equality can give readers deep insights into the problem of interracial relations in the contemporary Brazil. The first two chapters of this work are aimed at describing the experiences of people living in favelas or shanty towns. These examples that the author provides can tell much about the challenges faced by the residents of these settlements.
The main strength of this book is that the author relies not only on the statistical data, but also on the interviews given by people living in favelas. This approach makes his arguments more informative and convincing. This is why this source is worth reading.
According to Peter Sheriff, Brazilian academicians avoid mentioning that nearly 75 percent of people living in slums are non-white (Sheriff 18). Furthermore, one can speak about the existence of residential as well racial segregation. The ancestors of these people were enslaved and brought to the colonies (Sheriff 18).
To a great extent, this economic inequality can be regarded as a legacy of slavery in Brazil. It seems that such a trend can be observed in other countries in which slave labor was extensively used, for example, one mention the so-called inner cities in the United States. Certainly, Peter Sheriff’s arguments cannot be generalized, but he is able to show that modern societies are still affected by the discourse of race.
For instance, one can mention that some governmental officials in Brazil have a rather biased attitude toward the residents of favelas. Very often, they believe that they are rude and uncultured (Sheriff 19). Certainly, I am not directly familiar with this form of discrimination, but it seems that it is widespread in modern communities.
Another aspect of this reading is that Peter Sheriff tries to give voice to favela residents. Judging from their responses, in Brazil the language of race is still vital for describing the identity of a person (Sheriff 39). Moreover, there is a distinct correlation between the race of an individual and his/her socio-economic status in the community.
Furthermore, one should remember that in the public opinion, the word negro is often associated with ugliness, marginality, and darkness (Sheriff 39). In my opinion, by focusing on people’s experience, Robin Sheriff is able to throw a new light on the challenges that they encounter.
Nevertheless, the author’s discussion leaves many questions unanswered. Certainly, it is vital to know how people perceive race. However, one still has to determine ways of overcoming the legacies of slavery in Brazil. This issue is particularly relevant to the residents of favelas who struggle with poverty and crime.
This is the main limitation of the writer’s analysis. However, one can argue that Robin Sheriff has successfully demonstrated that despite the emphasis on diversity and tolerance, racial rhetoric still plays an important part in the modern world. Such a country as Brazil is only one example of state in which there is a distinct relationship between race and social status. This is why this work should not be overlooked.
On the whole, Peter Sheriff’s analysis is useful for understanding how colonial past and slavery can shape the development of the country. It can help people better understand various academic works examining such concepts as race and racism. Finally, by reading this book, one can get a better idea of contemporary Brazil.
Works Cited
Sheriff, Robin. Dreaming Equality: Color, Race, and Racism in Urban Brazil, New York: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Print.
The debate about race superiority based on the level of intelligent quotient is an issue that raises significantly conflicts. Many research papers have been written, favoring the superiority of one race against the other.
This paper provides a comparison between a research carried out by Suein Hwang and Richard E. Nisbett.
According to Hwang, a mistake that the 15- point difference in I.Q between Africans and the whites is attributable to their genetic difference was advanced with wrong evidence. Rather, Hwang argues that the evidence supports that I.Q differences are environmental, not genetic.
The difference in I.Q. between Africans and whites has also been attributed to the smaller size of brain size among the Africans. However, the difference in brain size is considerably higher between men and women, yet men and women score nearly the same in I.Q. tests.
Some of the people living in Ecuador having smaller brain sizes and yet their I.Q. is as high as those of their unaffected relatives. The intermarriages between Africans and Europeans show no significant difference in I.Q.
According to a research by community college the blacks did quite as well as the whites on their ability to learn new words. As a result of the decreased I.Q. difference between African and Whites fro 15 to 9.5 points, Hwang argues that all children have the same ability to develop their minds.
On the other hand, Richard argues that there is a notable difference in schools between Asians and Whites. Many parents are taking away their children from public schools to private ones. They argue that the schools are not well rounded and as such focus largely on the academics at the expense of other extracurricular activities.
Else, they say that the schools are too Asian. The exodus of the whites from these schools is largely based on race-based presumptions, not all of which are positive. For instance: Asian parents are too competitive. This is a stereotype of the whites who see the increasing Asian population as a threat.
In this paper, Richard documents that in Cupertino’s schools the whites always end up in the stereotyped class of underachievers. In one of the lowest-level math class, the students are an electric mix of the whites, Asians and other racial groups.
This is a clear indication that no race that lacks those that are intellectually superior and inferior ones. A further example is given where in an advanced chemistry level class there are only few Whites with the rest being Asian in Cupertino.
In this school, the principal explains that all races go alone well, but the Whites suffer from the ‘white-boy syndrome’. This means that the children who are white feel as distinguished minority among a majority culture.
The Asian parents feel that it is not the academic competition the Whites are uncomfortable with in the schools but the academic competition with Asian-American. Some of the schools have been blamed of overemphasizing the academics at the expense of developing other critical aspects in a student.
Form the above; we can conclude that it is not the race that determines the I.Q. quotient of an individual. Whites, Asians and Africans have the potential to develop their I.Q.
It is also clear that changes in amount of wealth and environmental changes can contribute to I.Q. change. The drop of I.Q. from 15 to 9.5 points between the whites and Africans can be indirectly connected to change in the social factor.
The separation between groups is a common characteristic of many communities and societies not only in developed countries such as the United States but also in the developing world. Available literature demonstrates that the separation is precipitated by factors such as socioeconomic status, gender considerations, racial and ethnic considerations, ethnicity, and religious convictions. In the United States, race appears to override other factors in determining how people socialize and interact with each other. The focus of the present paper is to discuss how race relations could be improved in the country through education.
Role of Education in Improving Racial Relations
Research is consistent that racial or intergroup relations are affected in adverse ways by many stereotypes, misconceptions, and negative attitudes held by the dominant racial group toward other minority racial and ethnic groupings. In this light, education can be used to address stereotypes and misconceptions by not only providing accurate information about minor racial groups but also encouraging cooperation and collaboration between students from dominant racial groups and those perceived as marginalized through the lens of race. Indeed, Banks is clear that “an important aim of schools should be to provide students with experiences and materials that will help them to develop positive attitudes and behaviours toward individuals from different racial, ethnic, language, and social-class groups.” Drawing from this elaboration, it is evident that education could be used to ensure that students from different racial groups are facilitated to develop positive attitudes toward each other and deal with issues of stereotyping and segregation with the view to improving race relations.
It is also important to note that education can stimulate cohesion and promote social inclusion, which in turn foster the development of relationships that go beyond the confines of racial cocoons by ensuring that individuals can internalize the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to establish mutually beneficial interactions across the racial landscape. Here, it is important to note that individuals who have been exposed to an elaborate education system are more able than those without adequate education to use their knowledge and skills to establish meaningful relationships with people from other racial groups as they have the know-how and expertise to mitigate pre-existing animosities.
The last argument is embedded in the fact that education provides individuals with the skills and competencies to understand race and racial relations as mere social constructions that are not in any way biologically or genetically determined. Here, it is important to note that the common stereotypes and misconceptions about African Americans as criminals, for example, are fuelled by a lack of understanding that Blacks are more predisposed to turn into criminals due to environmental factors rather than genetic or biological orientations. With exposure to education, however, students and other members of the society gain some form of racial literacy which is integral to understanding how their values systems, beliefs, and attitudes toward others contribute to the development of a mental schema that they use to characterize others as racially superior or inferior. Racial relations will improve when society members develop an adequate understanding of the fact that the mental schemas and social constructions of other people based on their race are often biased and without merit.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed how race relations could be improved in the country through education. Drawing from the discussion, it can be concluded that education is of immense importance in ensuring that people from different racial backgrounds continue to live in harmony.
Bibliography
BANKS, JAMES A., ‘Improving Race Relations in Schools: From Theory and Research to Practice’, Journal of Social Issues, 62/3 (2006), 607-614, in Academic Search Premier [online database], Web.
HORSFORD, SONYA DOUGLAS, ‘When Race Enters the Room: Improving Leadership and Learning through Racial Literacy’, Theory into Practice, 53/2 (2014), 123-130, in Academic Search Premier [online database], Web.
MCKEOWN, S., STRINGER, MAURICE, and CAIRNS, ED., ‘Classroom Segregation: Where do Students Sit and How is This Related to Group Relations’, British Educational Research Journal, 42/1 (2015), 40-55, in Academic Search Premier [online database], Web.
Nowadays, there are still many social problems that people cannot solve entirely and successfully. One of them is the difference in treating persons of various races. The fact that some unexpected areas use this factor as a measurement of one’s abilities, skills, diseases, and treatments is rather disturbing. It is scientifically proven that race is not a reliable shortcut or proxy but simply a distraction that does not let see the real and the whole picture of one’s condition and situation. However, practice shows that specifying race plays a significant role in treating patients, which means that probably not all people get equal and fair treatment.
Unfortunately, not many people know that the health care area supports and promotes stereotypes about people with different skin color. Precisely race runs deeply throughout all of medical practice, including “shaping physicians’ diagnoses, measurements, treatments, prescriptions, and even the very definition of diseases” (“The Problem with Race-Based Medicine”). The question of why this happens bothers many feminists, journalists, sociologists, and other researchers like Linda Villarosa and Dorothy Roberts. They find it rather strange and disturbing that a person’s race plays a crucial role in defining his or her diagnosis, treatment, and condition.
One may not believe it, but medicine was used to support and justify slavery. Back in the 1850s, “Negro medicine” promoted the racial concept of disease, meaning that “people of different races suffer from different diseases” and never experience common ones in the same ways (“The Problem with Race-Based Medicine”). What is more, slavery was announced to be beneficial for medical reasons (“The Problem with Race-Based Medicine”). It sounds absurd and made up, but this is actually our past. Of course, it cannot be changed, but every effort must be made to prevent this from happening in the present. According to Dorothy, “human beings are not divided into races in the biological sense of the term” (14). The importance of this statement is hard to be overestimated.
People of other races have to feel relaxed when going to a hospital or participating in a research study. African-Americans need to be completely sure that their treatment is as effective and strong as it would be for white patients. Asians and Native Americans have to stop doubting whether their treatment is primarily based on the color of their skin or their individual and current condition (“The Problem with Race-Based Medicine”). The ideas of black people having more muscles, being predisposed to drug addictions, or feeling less pain lead to even more injustice, hatred, harmful biases, and stereotypes. Linda Villarosa, an American journalist, writes about these problems, tells about the link between slavery and medicine, and draws public attention to the necessity of making the health industry get rid of stereotypes and racial prejudges.
There are some evident connections between the information we study in class and the ideas of Linda Villarosa and Dorothy Roberts. The purpose of our interdisciplinary course is to emphasize the dynamic interaction of biological and sociocultural factors in women’s health. This course is based on the critical feminist analyses of medicine, as well as current research in epidemiology, biomedicine, and gender studies. Applying a number of multidisciplinary approaches in order to consider how sex and gender affect health in a variety of specific domains is simultaneously the aim of this course and some significant sociologists and feminists. Villarosa and Roberts prove that race cannot play an essential role in medicine since there are no significant differences between the bodies of white, African-American, or Native American people. Such journalists’ and sociologists’ research is necessary for younger generations to help them see the problem from other perspectives and contribute to its elimination.
Works Cited
“The Problem with Race-Based Medicine | Dorothy Roberts.” YouTube, uploaded by TED Talk, 2016, Web.
Roberts, Dorothy. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century. The New Press, 2011.
Throughout its existence, society has tended to divide people into social groups according to their status, class, or race. The purpose of this tendency is to state the superiority of some people over others and justify discrimination. A biological and a social view of race are very different, which creates a misconception of race in society and leads to discrimination. The very concept of racial classification is a social construct that is used to justify social inequality and, at the same time, has no scientific reasoning. That is why understanding the difference between the biological and social definitions of race is crucial.
Although society classifies people by appearance, in a biological view of race, it is also essential to consider a person’s physical characteristics, geographical factors, and heredity. According to Rogow (2003), biologically, all people belong to the same species, and the genes responsible for physical dissimilarities have nothing in common. Most of the physical traits determined by a person’s race were formed due to adaptation to environmental conditions, but now this approach is losing its relevance. Notwithstanding, these genes do not affect a human’s personality, intelligence, or skills.
Moreover, in the U.S., the social concept of race has an established historical background since the country’s economy was based on slavery for a long time. The concept of race and “belief in white superiority justified anti-democratic action and policies” (Rogow, 2003, p.4) towards underprivileged groups. It again confirms that race at this stage is more of a social construct that takes little account of biological characteristics. Today it is impossible to say that there are people who genetically belong to a single race. Humans have evolved in interaction with each other; hence, as Rogow (2003) notes, “most variation is within, not between, “races” (p. 4). It explains the factor of heredity, considered in the biological definition of the human race, which cannot be excluded.
As for me, I think there is a higher chance to be genetically like someone who looks like me, although social biases might cause such a statement. It is essential to understand that genetics is only partially involved in the issue of racial identification. Therefore, it is impossible to categorically declare genetic dissimilarity with someone who does not look like me. Thus, providing a more objective answer to this question requires conducting a more profound study without taking into account the social view of race.
The objective of determining the amount of face consciousness among people from the same races and those from different races is an interesting field of study. It has been discovered that most people are not able to distinguish the difference between two people who are of different racial backgrounds from theirs.
This is even more difficult if the person encounters both groups of these people at different intervals in the society. People of the same race are also believed to have the same habits and so, it is a common occurrence when people are judged based on their perceived racial backgrounds.
Introduction
Race bias in face recognition is a common issue among many people from all walks of life. For most people, it is always easy for them to identify the faces of people from their own races than from other races. The result of this has always been a misidentification which most of the times leads to incrimination of people who are innocent.
People who have never interacted with other races experience difficulties in distinguishing the difference existing between people of the same race that they do not constitute. This is different when identifying people from their own race as they are able to tell the difference.
One of the most important research questions in relation to this subject is whether the difference in visual signals is extorted from the same race, and other race facial characteristic.
According to the research carried out by Bothwell and his colleagues (1989) a conclusion was drawn that “the image processing system is less sensitive to spatial relations between features in other-race faces than in the same race faces” (20).
This conjecture is proved by the comparison of recognition capacity in faces that are upright and the ones which are inverted. The effect of face inversion is a deficiency in the roots ability and a reduction in the cognitive capacity of the observer or participant in the experiment.
Methodology
The first step in this case, is to determine the sample over which the assessment will be carried out. This involves the selection of twenty people belonging to different races. A fifty – fifty difference in gender will be employed to make the outcome of the experiment more convincing and useful.
The stimuli should consist of passport photographs taken from the front. They should have the black and white shade and categorized according to gender. The person preparing this test should ensure that none of these people has unique physical characteristics such as long hair, different style of clothing or even eye glasses.
The other recommendation is that half of this population should consist of one race and the other half the other race under consideration. Visual basic software is then used to describe these images to the people participating in the experiment.
Seated at approximately one meter from the screen of the computer, the participants are requested to carefully examine the images. These are displayed randomly at an interval of about three seconds. A constraint is created such that three consecutive images should not for people from the same race.
After a specific period of just running the images on the screen, the other half of the images that had been presented are displayed before the participants. The participants are not aware that the images being displayed are different from the previous ones and so they are asked to select a yes if they are able to recognize a face and a no if they had never seen it before.
The results are rated on 7 point scale and finally the participants fill out forms describing their racial backgrounds including the racial characteristics of the community they grew up around. From the experiment, the following graph was plotted.
Discussion
Form the graph above, it was clearly identified that first, the students were able to identify the aligned faces better than the misaligned ones. The rate of acceptance was however, higher amongst people of the same race in the aligned case.
As for the misaligned faces, the rate of acceptance was lower in other races than in the individual race. The participants were able to recognize the people behind the images of the misaligned faces better when the person was from their racial background.
People who grew up in neighborhoods with different races were able to recognize the person behind the images more accurately irrespective of their racial affiliations.
This owe to the fact that they have interacted with people from many races to the extent that they can tell even in the event of the misaligned faces. Many researchers have suggested that people from different racial backgrounds have physical features and facial expressions that resemble.
The conclusion drawn from the whole experiment is that, the amalgamated effects on the faces of the sample population were experienced more with the same race image compared other race faces, and the substance of this process of mis-aligning the faces demonstrate how the relations between people of the same race are more stimuli related.
According to Yin (1968) “these findings provide direct evidence that the representations underlying the holistic facial recognition are coarsely defined, being able to accommodate two faces of a different race to a certain extent” (141).
He goes on to explain that “these representations are considered specific to the extent that the whole procedure is more significant for faces with which one has considerable visual experiences referred to as same race or SR faces” (141). Besides that this mindset scholar made an assumption that “individuals in diverse society’s records that people of other races resemble exclusively in facial characteristics” (142).
This is one of the reasons contributing to the problem of racial discrimination. The characteristics of most people are judged basing on the racial community they originate. As a result, most people have been complaining that they are being treated unfairly owing to the generalization of their racial characteristics.
Blacks in the United States for example, are believed to be hooligans and as a result of this, a large percentage of them are jailed despite them being innocent. The best example of this is the case presented by Bothwell and his colleagues.
A white woman was raped by a black man, and when this lady was given photos of the people who matched her description, she picked the wrong person. After ten years, this lady came up and revealed that all the people in the pictures resembled and so she just picked up any one of them. This is what race biases in face recognition entail. An understanding of this issue is important as it will prevent a recurrent of such cases.
According to the results obtained from this experiment, the subjects or participants seem to be more precise on the when identifying the misaligned faces compared to the aligned ones.
The interaction amongst the members of the same race, the race of the faces used as samples and the alignments showed a high level of importance as indicated by the projections.
Another conclusion assessed from these projections is that the combined effect was more pronounced in the case of the misaligned faces more than the aligned faces. Most of the participants were able to identify the images based on the top part of the face. There is no significant difference in the results obtained when the faces are aligned for the races in question.
Conclusion
This experiment can suggest that most people identify members of their races when their faces are aligned. Most of them could not tell the difference while observing the lower part of the faces in the misaligned faces while a majority of them were able to make appropriate judgments from the top part of the faces.
Conclusions drawn from this experiment, and many others related to it is that “other-race effect is brought about by early categorization of race at the expense of individual characteristics” (Yin, 1968). The moment an individual is perceived to belong to a particular racial background; other traits they control become irrelevant as their identity is judged from this.
Reference List
Bothwell, R.K., Brigham, J.C., & Malpass, R.S. (1989). “Cross-racial identification”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15, 19–25.
Yin, R. K. (1968). “Looking at upside-down faces”. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81, 141-145.
In the book The Death of Race: Building a new Christianity in a racial world by Brian Bantum, the author argues that race must die for humans to live. The rationale for this thesis is that race has only managed to reap death since people have used God’s essence of racial difference to create a world in their image1. Historically, the race has shaped humanity in terms of how to live, with whom to live, and how individuals see each other. Christianity is also threatened by race, especially if the racially oppressed find no reason to support a religion that has no clear definition of their identity. Overall, Bantum believes that race has even eclipsed the American story of the American society since religion can be associated with whiteness. Therefore, only through the elimination of race can the world flourish without certain races thriving at the expense of others.
Arguments for Author’s Position
The author has argued his position mostly by using personal experiences with race and attempts to feel differently from what people close to him felt he should. To justify the death of race, Bantum has successfully shown what is wrong with it and the problem it has caused, as well as attempting to illustrate how it has been misconceived. In the first chapter, the author states that “race is this act of conjuring,”2 a statement that can be used to imply that the creation of the idea of race has been misleading. People only start to realize their race upon growing a conscience, considering that Bantum started to experience it when he was nineteen years old. In other words, the race has been a human creation that has been used to define people and a story that shapes ideas of what human bodies are for. Such a conception of race by the author helps support the argument that the world could do without it and that the world would be better off if race died. Overall, the race is not a natural thing or a history that matters to people.
The author also uses Christianity and its teaching to prove that race is an unnecessary human conception of what God created differently. From the creation story, the Christian belief is that the differences between people were an intention of God, with the basic example being the differences between men and women3. However, people have misused these differences to create an unequal world where life experiences are defined by them. For example, the American jails house more African American men, which shows how race and gender are treated within the society. Additionally, the stories of race have been used to justify violence against a certain group and the denial of what the American constitution described as inalienable rights. As a Christian, the idea of the image of God means the body and the differences, which means that Christianity has been using race wrongly all along. From this perspective, Bantum successfully makes a point that Christians should never allow race to define them differently than what God intended them to be.
Much of the focus of the author is observing race through the lens of our bodies and what they mean in a complicated and racialized world that is keen to dehumanize dark bodies. From the beginning of the first chapter, Bantum highlights that race is a story written on the body and one which turns the body into a story. In this case, the treatment that he and his parents have received from the community has defined who they are and how their lives have been poisoned. Bantum also describes the race as a “…cancer, a cell that shares a likeness to part of my world…”4 As is the case with cancer, the disease tends to multiply violently until it overruns the body, which is how race ultimately determines how a body is seen. The race is a social system since it is started and propagated by people until it reaches a point where it can control all aspects of human life and the dehumanization of others. Similar to cancer, the removal of race will leave a healthy body that can survive and thrive.
Lastly, one of the most important arguments to support his position is that race has only resulted in death, implying that race and human beings’ life are inversely related. This is a particularly successful argument considering that racism across the United States has been associated with massive deaths since the days of slavery. Other scholarly materials have also illustrated racism has historically resulted in the mass killings of other races, which include the native Indians who were killed during the colonization of the Americas5. The author is an African American, which means he fully understands how his race has been detrimentally suffered due to racism. In chapter 7, the death of race is seen as the ultimate solution where people refuse the lie about race and embark on living freely without struggling to be seen as human. The death of race is the beginning of independence and freedom that will ensure that no one will be defined by the colors of their bodies.
Key Lessons 5
Reading the book reveals several important things to learn, most of which revolve around the conceptualization of race. First, race is a social creation intended to create a system that suits some people who deem themselves to be in a position of power. Therefore, it is not a natural phenomenon associated with humanity, which supports Bantum’s position that the world can live without it. This lesson is vital considering that the author calls for the death of race and he has to have a justification for this. Bantum has managed to use Christian teaching to illustrate gender and racial differences were intentionally created by God, but not for humans to use these distinctions to build systems that dehumanize others.
The second lesson is that it is difficult for people to eliminate the use of color to racially classify people. Bantum had lived without knowing the existence of this phenomenon until it came to a point where he had to tick boxes that classified him as black and encountered people and scenarios that insisted on his blackness. This lesson helps understand why the author believes that the death of race does not necessarily mean becoming colorblind since people will always notice it. For Bantum, he did not see himself as black due to his complexion, but even this did not stop him from associating with the color black. Considering that color is the primary element in race, it becomes difficult to imagine race dying even if people were to no longer believe the lies propagated about race.
The third and one of the most important lessons is that even the dehumanized races have played a critical role in persisting racial prejudices. This is an argument that can be made from Bantum’s relationship with his parents and peers who insisted on his blackness. For example, Bantum states that the darker children saw his body like theirs even though he did not. These peers insisted that he was black, which is why he should work on the MLK assembly with the rest of the black children. This scenario illustrates that the African Americans have embraced the racial classification and feel no need to fight it or prove that their color is not inherently bad and worthy of dehumanizing. However, the same attitude can be interpreted to mean that this community understands the difficulty in making the privileged white perceive them as equals. In this case, uniting and proving to the world that being black is a good thing would be the most rational approach.
Lastly, the outcome of the racial system created by humans has been a death due to dehumanization and exploitation of people based on their color. This is perhaps the most important lesson considering the extreme implications of racism experienced in the United States and other such countries are South Africa, whose apartheid regime can be described as a chronic case of racism. In the United States, racism allowed the whites to enslave the blacks and European colonists to murder the Native Indians to propagate their own prosperity across the Americas. Even after the end of slavery, racism allows privileges to one race and disregards the others, which causes inequalities and gaps across multiple social and economic parameters. However, the criminal and sexual exploitation of the minority races are the main evidence of how race facilitates death.
Analysis
I consider chapter 7 to be the most significant since it makes a case for why race should die. The rationale is that the entire book has attempted to describe everything wrong with race and why it is an unnecessary human conception. In other words, all previous chapters have been leading to chapter 7, where the author can finally present his opinion on the subject. Additionally, the idea of the death of race appears to be vague without reading this chapter and understanding what Bantum meant by suggesting that race must die. Towards the end of the chapter, Bantum explains that the death of race is a point in life when people refuse to believe the lies propagated about race. The steps towards this end have been outlined in other chapters, including those arguing that the differences in our bodies were intended by God and not for people to use them to create a world of their own. This chapter finally illustrates that as long as people believe in race racism, the resulting dehumanization of bodies will never cease.
Several statements made by the author did make an impression on me due to the message they contained and the unique propositions and reasoning used. However, the quote that made the most impression is the one associating race with death, which evokes deep emotions of a race that has historically suffered due to skin color. Bantum states that “race is a form of death because it renders certain bodies to nothing but bone. It eats away the uniqueness and beauty of every individual and incorporates them into an ecosystem where such uniqueness is only possible for white bodies”6. This quote illustrates that there is nothing inherently wrong with certain skin colors and nothing special about others, which shows why prejudice and privilege cannot be rationally justified. All the evils that have happened to black people, including criminal and sexual exploitation, have been justified only by the fact that they are black. The saddest part is that Christianity has kept racial hierarchies in place despite these evils7. Therefore, likening race to death tends to summarize everything that is wrong with it.
I had my reservations about the argument that race must die since I did not understand the incentives provided for the oppressors to stop violating the liberties of the oppressed. The rationale is that the idea regarding the death of race is that people should stop believing the lies told about it and embrace their differences as God intended. The history of the United States illustrates that racism has always been propagated by the white majority to justify their sexual and economic exploitation of African Americans since the days of slavery. Today, slavery may have ended, but racism is a mechanism that offers privileges to the whites at the expense of other races. Personally, calling for the death of race is equivalent to asking the whites to give up their privileges. My argument is that is it impossible to achieve this goal, but that Bantum does not offer adequate incentives for the whites to give up their privileges. In this case, only the oppressed can start viewing themselves as free of race and embrace their differences but a similar outcome from the whites is difficult to expect.
What I found difficult with the book is the fact that the author calls for the death of race and the same time, reiterates that people do not have t be colorblind. In the United States, color is the platform upon which race is built, maintained, and propagated. Studies of Black Theology had also hinted that color is the primary item in racism, with examples from such countries as South Africa when apartheid persisted for several decades8. In this case, Black Theology has led to the realization that even the blacks are a significant race that can unite and fight against all evils done to them simply for being black. In other words, race cannot die as long people continue to identify themselves and others in terms of the color of their skin. I find this argument difficult since Bantum expresses that color has been used for classifying people. The death of race can only be achieved if people also resist the urge for classification based on color.
One thing I found challenging in the book is the fact that a person could not know anything about race until one grows up and the subject comes up. The life story and experiences of Bantum are evidence of the fact that even the oppressed have a role to play in facilitating the persistence of oppression based on race. Bantum’s parents were among the first people to let him know that he was black, even after living for several years without ever having such a thought. This knowledge challenged me since it is evidence that the story of race has been so convincing that even those people to whom it causes prejudice have believed it. However, there is also an argument that they have been left no choice but to accept it, considering that even government documentation classifies people along the same lines. It would not have been possible for Bantum to skip this knowledge, considering he had to tick some boxes that indicated his color, which is also about the same time that his parents made him aware of this fact.
Emerging Questions
Several emerged during my reading and that bear further exploration. The first is whether there can be a different system of demographic classification in the government and other official records that disregard the color of individuals. Even though Bantum does not believe people need to become colorblind, I believe that young African Americans will ultimately be made aware of their color and the consequences it carries for their life. The second is the role that white Christians have to play in dismantling the racial hierarchies that have persisted within this religion for millennia. The rationale is that Christians believe in the creation story and how God intended all humans to be in His likeness and that the differences in creation are intentional. In this case, one can expect that true Christians will understand that the human body is sacred and should be treated as such, regardless of color. Bantum does not offer insights into what role Christianity or theology plays in killing race, implying a question and gap that warrants further exploration.
Effects on Vocational Practice
The book changes how I would approach my theology practice and what lessons I would be seeking to impart to all Christians. Bantum has illustrated that race is a human conception that violates the treatment of God’s creation, which means that there is a need to teach Christian to learn how to respect the biblical teachings and embrace the differences that God intended to be beautiful. The ideas in the book can form the foundation for a new theological discourse that can be labeled as killing racism and which offers the right religious approach to this problem. The theological practice could be influenced by one’s understanding and interpretation of scriptures and other relevant texts. In this case, Bantum has offered a new approach to interpreting the Bible by holding a firm position that God did not make people different for them to suffer dehumanization. Therefore, a priority on teaching Christian to refrain from racism could emerge in my vocational practice.
Conclusion
Overall, the book by Bantum is one that forces the reader to reconsider their beliefs and, as a result, their approaches to practice. The author’s personal story is relatable, which explains why vocational practice can be modeled around the major themes of this book. However, the effects on vocation may depend on the perspective taken, either as an ordinary American or an African American who also relates to the same life experiences.
Bibliography
Bantum, Brian, The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016).
Brecht, Mara. “A Widened Angle of View: Teaching Theology and Racial Embodiment.” Journal of Global Catholicism 5, no. 1 (2021): 20-29.
Hughey, Mathew. “Race and Racism: Perspectives from Bahá’í Theology and Critical Sociology.” The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 27, no. 3 (2017): 7-56.
Moore, Basil. “Learning from Black Theology.” Journal for the Study of Religion 31, no. 1 (2018): 86-95.
Footnotes
Brian Bantum, The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016).
Ibid, 4.
Ibid, 20.
Ibid, 14
Mathew Hughey, “Race and Racism: Perspectives from Bahá’í Theology and Critical Sociology.” The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 27, no. 3 (2017): 9.
Bantum, The Death of Race, 108.
Mara Brecht, “A Widened Angle of View: Teaching Theology and Racial Embodiment.” Journal of Global Catholicism 5, no. 1 (2021): 25.
Basil Moore, “Learning from Black Theology.” Journal for the Study of Religion 31, no. 1 (2018): 87.
Movements of racial equality demand for new political strategy; this strategy must appeal to the broad multiracial population of the United States of America, and it should address the various problems that afflict the minorities who are disadvantaged while redressing and addressing the historical legacy of racism in America.
This has never been realized since there still exist a sharp division on matters pertaining to race and hence the public sympathy for the minority is waning, and this has subjected them to racial exclusion. There is a need to address the concerns of the larger American population simultaneously with the concerns of the racial minority.
This however will not be realized until the problems afflicting the majority of the American citizens cease to be addressed in the race lines of Asian, Blacks, and the Latino and Native Americans but rather addressed as common problems facing them.
Proponents of racial equality should pursue policies that seek to unite as opposed to dividing them on racial basis; this will open a way to the creation of multiracial progressive coalitions in national politics. This can be easy given the strong and understandable perception of America as an apartheid society. Institutional racisms pose a lot of challenges; the existence of this form of racism supports the idea that multiracial coalition is doomed to fail (Wilson 23).
Racial Politics and Race-based Coalitions
The key consideration in coalition building is individual racism and not institutional racism. Various public opinions polls still indicate that race is a major factor in public and political affairs in the US. This is because there is a better understanding of the majority of attitudes towards the minority citizens when the issue of multiracial coalitions is considered (Wilson 23).
The modern and influential inclusionary theory of political incorporation is derived from the entry of the Latinos and the blacks into the US urban electoral coalitions that started in the year 1960s. The agenda and analysis of coalition politics in the United States cities were set by Rufus Browning and Dale Rogers Marshall.
They utilized the term political incorporation as an indication of how great interests are represented in the policy-making cycles in US urban areas through the inclusion of the representatives of minority in the key and dominant electoral coalition. Political incorporation takes place in stages, and it measured by analyzing the degree with which the excluded or minority groups are represented in the coalition that dominates urban policy making.
The minorities can have the power to stake a claim in the politics of racial coalitions, and they can have a higher degree of representation by being party and dominant players in the governing coalitions, and this will make them have a substantial influence in matters of policy making. It is argued that without the white allies, the minority cannot forge a successful coalition that can govern.
The mobilization of the minority towards policy-making in the urban areas can contribute a lot to increase their voice in matters of race politics. The politics of minority groups is well documented, and every citizen is familiar about it. It is a common phenomenon in urban areas (Hochschild and Mollenkopf 52).
The pertinent issue regarding the future of ethnic and racial politics in America is whether the link or association between the minorities will be characterized by conflict or cooperation. It is widely acceptable that the shared minority status is considered as the nucleus where the Latinos, Asian and African who would form an influential and powerful coalitions. The minority groups are united together by the same ideological world view, mutual ties and similar political interests.
It is widely expected that politics and policy making could only be transformed by the active engagement, and the presence of race based coalitions in the political process. It has been argued that the development of coalitions among the minority races can be considered as a basis of enacting and conceptualizing different policy paradigms.
There are various and well known coalitions in the urban areas and cities of America and these coalitions have resulted with the success of electing minority candidates and also the incorporation of the minority population and their interests into the political system. The recent and conspicuous case of multiracial political coalition was the one that happened in 2005 in the race for mayor of Los Angeles where Antonio Villaraigoisa, who was elected the first Latino mayor of the city.
It is, however, predicted that ethnic minority group is moving towards more of a conflicting status as opposed to a cooperative path. This is because every race has reservations about the other; there is behavior, for example, by the blacks to develop negative attitudes and negative opinions about the Latinos and this often leads to anxiety among the blacks hence reducing the prospect of positive interactions between the two minority groups (Junn and Haynie 170). It has been identified that there are several factors that threaten the prospect and formation of multiracial political coalitions.
Due to the fact that there is no racial group that can win worldwide elections on its own, coalitions building has been a necessity in the modern American politics. According to the analysis by McNickle of mayoral elections in the United States, there have been three racial and minority coalitions that have been held responsible for the election of the mayor in the entire twentieth century.
The democratic coalitions led by the Catholics of the Irish origin and which was supported by the Jewish immigrants, and an Italian minority have been very successful in the election of the mayor in eleven out of 16 elections, and the candidate in this case was an Irish Catholic.
These coalitions of the minorities promoted liberal and progressive coalition’s agenda. There was another third coalition that was made up of the white liberals, Latinos and the blacks who only become successful in the election of the mayor in 1989. There has also been a minority coalition of conservative Italians, Jews and Irish; unlike other minority coalitions, this one lacked the backing of the Democratic Party.
The formations of coalitions among the minority to serve as mayor has been growing elusive with only one exception of David Dinkins who has been the only product of the minority coalitions to serve for one term as a mayor. Though the blacks and the Hispanic coalition have failed to elect the mayor other than Dinkins, the city of New York, when compared to other cities have been formulating and producing policies that are responsive to the needs and the wishes of the minority groups (Berg 154).
Racial politics and minority groups and coalition politics
Given the fact that there is increasing immigration from the Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean; there is a prospect of increasing minorities in the USA. Political analysts have been pondering whether these new immigrants will forge a coalition with the native-born counterparts, especially the Afro-American. It has been argued that race based alliances are more likely in this kind of scenario, particularly between the non-white Americans and African-Americans during this period of raced based discrimination.
It has proved, however, that these inter-group coalitions have not been good enough to prevent the inter-minority tensions. There has been much talk and empirical questions about how the newcomers will change the dynamics of coalitions in the demographically diverse urban setting of the U.S.in the Urban areas of the New York and Los Angeles, alliances are considered to be a matter of do or die.
This is prompted by the immigrant status of the non-whites and the vulnerability of the minorities to discriminations and hence this will forge them to forging of coalitions with the minorities who are Native Americans.
The shared interest between the non-white immigrants is considered a powerful force for political alliance among the minorities which will seek to unify the Afro-Americans and the foreign born colleagues; from this perspective, there is an anticipation of a grand rain bow coalitions among the non-white immigrants and the native-born blacks.
These alliances have however been rare and it has led to speculations that the minority Afro-Americans have a high chance of finding themselves in political isolations in any coalition with the non-white immigrants. Race based coalitions in the urban areas of American have been considered as a losing political strategy and a misguided idea. A coalition for example between the African Americans and the non-whites has not achieved success to date; in fact it has been proved to be difficult to maintain and foster (Rogers 284).
The theory of radically racially polarized voting and racially oriented politics indicates that race is a critical determinant of vote choice during elections, especially where a minority candidate is pitted against a majority or white candidate. This spatial model of voting indicates that the voters have the ability to decide the position of the candidates on certain issues and use their positions to make selections.
In the elections of the 2001 in Los Angeles, this theory of racially oriented politics was tested; each of the two competing races: a Latino and a White candidate were analyzed. Both candidates were considered to be liberal but what was conspicuous was that the race of the contestant mattered. With the changing times there has been an increasing need to challenge race based identity politics in order to increase the possibility of coalitions.
Americans are slowly demonstrating the desire to move away from the race–based politics, which has characterized the calls for the empowerment of the blacks and other minority races. Critiques of the politics of United States of America argue that the country should move along with the changing cultural, social and demographic realities that characterize the changing political environment.
Because America is home to people of diverse races, there is need to adopt multicultural democracy based on progressive ideologies; American should demonstrate that it can transcend racial chauvinism (Jennings 46).
The dynamics and the complexities of multiracial coalitions and politics have had the effect of pulling and pushing the very established foundation of the American politics and the racial hierarchy in coming eyes. The unprecedented increase in the population of the Asians and the Latinos is considered one of the powerful demographic shifts in the history of the United States of America.
This demographic shift is greatly felt in the urban areas where there is significant concentration of the minority. In various urban areas for instance, the whites form the minority population. The framework of the black-and-white injustice does not, as earlier it had been characterizing the racial politics of the United States of America, but much of the politics is still framed on the minority and racial politics phenomenon.
The urban America and the metropolitan politics is characterized by what is referred as racial dictatorship where American identity is considered to be white and where the phrase otherness was used in reference to people of other races. The political movement on the parts of Latinos, Asians and the Native Americans is a clear manifestation of the racial nature of American politics.
The multiracialism blend of American politics is instrumental in defining the significance of party affixation through the contemporary experience of the minorities in the United States of America. Racial hegemony has affected the nature, the substance and the timing of various legislations in the United States of America. An example of these legislations is the anticrime legislations which are geared towards other racial groups, majorly the blacks and the Latino.
There have been temporary protests in American by the minority groups and the other races which are aimed at providing an understanding of how the demographic shifts can have a potential effect on the politics of the blacks. In the United States of America, race has been considered to be an effect of the well dynamic and constructed consequences of political process and institutions (Assensoh 7).
In the urban America, it is posited that race and minority relations have altered the dynamics in the American sphere. The emergence of the Latinos and the Asians and the growth of their influence have affected the status quo in various spheres of American political life like the electoral contests, policy debates, congressional apportionment and social relations. This has led to a shift in the electoral cleavages from that of racial polarization. In the urban area of California, the politics of immigration and race have transcended that of the party politics; the city of California is considered a perfect example of the emerging trend in immigrant politics (Jones-Correa 92).
Conclusion
Coalitions among the racial minorities have long characterized the politics of the USA; the Asians, Latinos have been channeled to similar residential, occupational and same urban political space, and this helped strengthen their concerns and their interest. The behavior of the racial minorities to have political incorporation has been the dominant theme in the modern urban politics of America.
Traditionally, in the American urban history, the governing coalitions excluded the minorities from the political process and this made the minorities to find the political measure among them by forming coalitions. The new American which is made up of various immigrants from different races has embraced this multiracial challenge and complexities in order to be able to overcome the urban political process.
Works Cited
Alex-Assensoh, Yvette M. Black and Multiracial Politics in America. New York: New York Univ. Press, 2000. Print.
Berg, Bruce F. New York City Politics: Governing Gotham. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 2007. Print.
Hochschild, Jennifer L, and John Mollenkopf. Bringing Outsiders in: Transatlantic Perspectives on Immigrant Political Incorporation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Print.
Jennings, James. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians in Urban America: Status and Prospects for Politics and Activism. Westport: Praeger, 1994. Print.
Jones-Correa, Michael. Governing American Cities: Inter-ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001. Print.
Junn, Jane, and Kerry Haynie. New Race Politics in America: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.
Rogers, Reul. “Race-Based Coalitions among Minority Groups: Afro-Caribbean Immigrants and African-Americans in New York”, Urban Affairs Review 39.3(2004): 283-317. Print.
Wilson, William J. The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Print.
In order to remain legitimate, citizens ought to have confidence in the criminal justice system. If these citizens think of the institution as trustworthy, just, and fair, then chances are that they will concede to it.
Law enforcement is one of the most critical components of the criminal justice system because it interacts with almost all members of society. Ethnic minorities and poor people predominantly contact the government through the criminal justice system.
It, therefore, makes sense for law enforcers to appear just to this group of people. When policemen act differentially or in a biased way against a member of society, then they send the message that the political and social system of the country is unreliable.
It is imperative to study one aspect of police interactions with the public; domestic calls, in order to determine whether such injustices exist.
In this paper, it is hypothesis is as follows: law enforcement officials will respond quicker to domestic calls in a white neighborhood than calls from predominantly black neighborhoods because of the perception of repeated crimes in such areas.
Literature review
It is necessary to look at theoretical underpinning of crime in order to understand the context of the research hypothesis. Two theories are insightful in this analysis; they are the social disorganization theory and the conflict theory of criminology.
The social disorganization theory postulates that crime rates will be high in areas with dysfunctional communal institutions and minimal communal relationships. Lack of strong communal ties minimizes people’s cooperative behavior and hence their ability to prevent criminal behavior.
If a community engages its members in communal institutions such as schools, churches and family, then chances are that these people will have a strong bond with each other.
Consequently, they are less likely to commit crimes against one another. Analysts often apply the theory to people in small geographical units such as neighborhoods or communities (Bursik, 1988).
The social disorganization theory arose in the early 1900s and criminologists used it to explain high rates of crime in Chicago. At the time, numerous immigrants had entered the city and few of them associated with each other on the community level.
Chicago, which had consisted of a peasant society, became a multicultural city. Inconsistencies and disorganization replaced the uniformity and harmony that existed in the peasant society. Individualism and economic competition disintegrated the family unit as well as other communal institutions.
Since families were agents of social control in the previously homogenous society, then the heterogeneous society undermined government control. As a result, crime and delinquency persisted in Chicago.
It is possible for a certain area to experience high rates of crime irrespective of the racial or biological composition of the residents. In the social disorganization theory, social conditions perpetuate crime and delinquency.
Such areas are disorganized and lack the mechanisms for reinforcing laws. In the absence of these controls, crime will thrive (Groves & Sampson, 1989).
A number of researchers have studied the social disorganization theory in real-life settings. A case in point was a study done by Elijah Anderson. He summarized his findings in a piece known as the “Code of the Street”. The author studied an inner city African American community in Philadelphia.
He found that a street code existed in this community, and there were sincere and insincere adherents of the phenomenon. Anderson (1999) explains that families in this community can either be ‘street’ or decent.
Decent families hold mainstream values and inculcate the notions of self reliance and hard work among their family members. Nonetheless, they still teach their children how to behave in dangerous situations so as to protect themselves.
Members of decent families will put on the street persona when faced with difficult situations so as to protect themselves from attacks. Conversely, street families orient their family members into a violent subculture.
A high degree of disorganization exists among these families thus causing them to engage in self destructive behavior such as violence, alcoholism and drug abuse.
These findings indicate that when a high degree of social organization exists, then crime will abound. Therefore, the study testifies to the viability of the social disorganization theory.
It will be useful to understand how the social disorganization theory relates to the effectiveness of police response to domestic calls in this study. One can use the theory to understand why law enforcers sometimes have a bias in this area of police work.
The conflict theory of criminality is also quite useful in understanding criminality and hence police reactions to possible crimes. Karl Marx postulated that capitalist societies consist of two key groups; the working class (proletariat) and the elite (bourgeois).
The resource owners always perpetuate their self interests by exploiting the masses. They control resources and use their positions of power to maintain the status quo.
On the other hand, unequal distribution of resources causes members of the working class to become frustrated by the prevailing order thus prompting them to oppose the elite. A continuous conflict will always exist between the proletariat and the bourgeois because of this inequality.
Crime manifests in capitalist societies because poor people need a method of survival; only minimal economic opportunities exist for the working class (Kelley, 2011). Additionally, Marxists believe that inequality alienates the poor from the rich and propels them into crime.
Marxism and other conflict theories may also be used to explain why certain law enforcers behave the way they do. Adherents of this theory believe that the elite preserve the status quo by treating the law as an instrument.
It is one of the many institutions (religion, education, and mass media) used to keep power among the ruling class. This is the reason why crimes committed by poor people solicit more severe punishments than those committed by the rich.
Differential application of the law among members of a certain population perpetuates a hegemonic control of the masses. Biases in applications of law prove the existence of these hegemonies.
For instance, only 2.7 % of all the Caucasians that law enforcers capture go to prison while an astounding 10.2% of blacks go through the same. There is a homogenous population in prison that preserves the status quo of the white majority.
Additionally, white collar crime causes plenty of harm in society, but it do not solicit the same punitive actions from law enforcers as crimes committed by the working class. Even white collar crimes can be tax deduced once a judge passes the sentence.
If a court fines an organization, it will often require only a small portion of its earnings and thus protect the interests of the company owners. For instance, it may pay a $1.8 million-fine yet company profits stand at $1.7 billion. Therefore, the punitive abilities of those fines are highly questionable.
One may think of crime and deviance in a heterogeneous society as a consistent struggle between those in power and those outside the locus of control.
Individuals in positions of authority will strive to expand their level of control over resources by defining the activities of others as deviant. Therefore, members in authority will always claim that others are a threat to the existing order. To the elite, the existing order is always the legitimate one.
Matsueda and Drakulich (2009) carried out a study in which they wanted to build on the conflict theory of social control. They analyzed African American’s perceptions of the criminal justice system and determined whether these perceptions undermine the legitimacy of institutions within the country.
According to group conflict theories, the elite maintain control over subordinates through the legal system. Therefore, the biases, as dispensed through the criminal justice system, serve to disenfranchise economically-disadvantaged people continuously.
The authors found that prejudices against African Americans exist, and these serve to damage the authenticity of such institutions. It is these racial injustices that cause many African Americans to support affirmative action as well as other liberal policies.
Anderson (1999) further supports this notion in his analysis of a predominantly black neighborhood. The author states that institutional racism demoralizes African Americans and denies them opportunities for economic empowerment.
Therefore, many of these citizens choose crime (drugs and violence) in order to make financial gains that they would not have accessed had they tried mainstream society. Many African American drug dealers will enter the life of drug dealing in order to access material things and boost their status in society.
In the conflict theory, deviance stems from the proletariat’s need for social mobility. This is the case with black youth in the ghetto. Many of them seek to strengthen their status by acquiring the money needed to buy fancy things.
An economically disadvantaged group, such as the community under analysis, will often use deviant behavior in order to oppose the status quo (Anderson, 2002).
Chambliss and Seidman (1982) further argue that the legal system serves an authoritarian order. Here, law enforcers have the work of implementing the law while politicians make it. Additionally, it is this authoritarian structure that causes deficiencies in the legal system.
For instance, attorneys are the only ones who know most of the legal dialect in the law and this makes it inaccessible to the masses. Furthermore, appellate courts often make decisions that support the status quo. As a result, the elite will keep preserving their privileged positions through legal structures.
It will be insightful to know how the conflict theory will relate to police reactions to callers. The theory will be useful in explaining why police are reluctant to respond to calls from predominantly black neighborhoods, if the bias exists.
Additionally, the theory will contribute towards knowledge of the motivations for racial prejudice within the criminal justice system.
Research findings
Occurrences
Police misconduct entails any act that abuses police authority, such as extortion, bribery, abuses, excessive force or failure to offer assistance to distressed callers. The latter situation is the subject of analysis in this paper.
If police fail to act appropriately when a person calls for help, it is necessary to determine why they acted in such a manner. Several studies have looked into the issue of police misconduct and found that the behavior is likely to occur in neighborhoods with structural mobility issues.
This can be easily explained through the social disorganization theory. Additionally, police misconduct may also stem from changes in the population; that is, racial bias (Kane, 2002).
In fact, when these two factors exist in a certain location, then residents’ call for police help will not receive the much needed attention that it requires.
The history of citizens and police interactions with one another has a large role to play in determining whether law enforcers will respond accordingly to a distress call from a black neighborhood. Anderson (1999) carried out his research in Germantown Avenue.
He found that most residents did not trust the police owing to their indifference to their situations. Police helping behavior would dramatically reduce when in a predominantly black neighborhood. Some of the residents even reported cases of abuse from law enforcers who should have assisted them.
For instance, instead of dealing with the matter at hand, police would ask them about unrelated issues such as the sale of drugs. Sometimes this would spiral out of control and lead to the arrest of a victim of a crime.
Respondents in the latter study indicate that police were often present in the streets, but they did not have the residents’ interests at heart. The locals claimed that police officers have a low opinion of African American citizens, so they are less likely to assist them.
Given this negative relationship between law enforcers and black citizens, it is safe to say that police response to African American domestic calls from black neighborhoods would be lackluster.
A distinct difference exists between the provision of police services in black neighborhoods and white communities; law enforcers make these decisions based on the economic predisposition of the residents as well as their racial composition.
Brown and Coulter (1983) confirmed that an inequality exists in distribution of police services based on ethnicity. Sun and Payne (2004) further clarified that police do not act in the same way across all neighborhoods; their behavior changed according to their locations.
The number of victims that received assistance in these locations was not as high as the number of incidences that occurred. Furthermore, citizens were likely to result to their own ways of seeking justice in these areas. Weitzer (2000) also found that racialized policing was a reality in predominantly black neighborhoods.
The author compared police treatment of individuals across three neighborhoods in Washington DC. One neighborhood consisted of a predominantly lower class black community while the second one was a middle class white society. The third community was a middle class black community.
Respondents gave their insights about how police treated them in relation to other communities. Weitzer (2000) found that the predominantly black, lower class community experienced racial bias from the police fraternity.
If a member of the black community interacted with a police officer outside a black neighborhood, then police biases against them would disappear (Weitzer, 1999). Therefore, race becomes a problem in law enforcement when taking into account one’s neighborhood.
The differential treatment of citizens by law enforcement officials can be manifested through the rate at which police respond to calls. Consequently, such variations prove that the research hypothesis in true. Racial composition and social-economic backgrounds of callers determine police reactions.
It should be noted that the existence and extent of community policing in a certain neighborhood has adverse effects on how police respond to neighborhood calls. By its sheer nature, community policing represents a shift from reactive law enforcement to proactive work.
Neighborhoods with a sound community policing strategy connect well with police and inform them about crimes before they occur. They have a strong relationship with police because police respond suitably when they call for help.
Weitzer (2000) found that predominantly African American neighborhoods had poor relations with their police officers even when community policing existed. Study subjects stated that the police had no interest in engaging with them, and they were highly unwelcome.
Such opinions from the residents stemmed from the fact that the police had failed to come through for them when they needed their help. Residents continually get negative feedback from police when they warn them about crimes (for instance through domestic calls), and this leads to resentment from them.
It should be noted that these findings change dramatically when black officers enact community policing in predominantly black neighborhoods. Sun and Payne (2004) explain that differences in behaviors were present between black and white officers policing predominantly black neighborhoods.
Findings indicated that black officers engaged in supportive activities when in black neighborhoods while white officers used more coercive tactics in these communities. As a result, one can assume that differential treatment of victims of crime is true, and this implies poor response during domestic calls.
Theoretical explanations of police reactions to calls from African American neighborhoods
In order to understand why the police behave so differently, it is necessary to look into the theoretical explanations of their behavior. Conflict theories indicate that people in positions of authority will act in a way that protects the interests of those in power.
One can define a dominant group on the basis of economic status. Since American society largely consists of a white, middle class population, then poor, black citizens represent the opposite spectrum of those in power.
When police respond inadequately to domestic calls from low income, African American societies, they are protecting the interests of those in power.
Wearing police uniform and belonging to the police fraternity gives many law enforcers a strong sense of identity, which tempts some of them to abuse their positions. One may thus perceive law enforcers as agents of social control (Chambliss and Seidman, 1982).
In line with the above argument of social conflict, one may assume that unsatisfactory responses to domestic calls from African American callers stem from the lack of effective mechanisms for punishing racist behavior.
The prevalence of a dominant race causes them to implement policies that preserve their place in the social hierarchy. Placement of mechanisms that deter racist behavior among police officers would undermine efforts designed to protect members of the dominant class.
If proper disciplinary measures existed to correct such abuses of power, then the elite would no longer be significant. Police officers’ misconduct during call responses also stems from their perceptions of entities in control.
Many law enforcers feel that the only genuine source of their authority stems from the majority, where they belong (Jacobs and O’Brien, 1998).
On the other hand, police act discriminatorily during their response to distress calls owing to the social disorganization theory described in the literature review. Police may presume that predominantly black neighborhoods already have a high concentration of crime so their interventions will do little to change that.
Consequently, this perception causes them to slow down their reactions to domestic calls. The temptation to do nothing or to act inappropriately is much higher in crime-prone neighborhoods than in neighborhoods without such incidences. Sampson and Bartush (1998) confirm these assumptions.
They asserted that when the level of violent crime in a neighborhood became statistically insignificant, then police indifference to residents also reduced to unusually low levels.
This supports the notion that the police associate African American neighborhoods with a high degree of violence, and this makes it difficult to respond to them.
It should be noted that Sampson and Bartusch (1998) do not support police biases; they were merely assessing perceptions and explanations for differential police behavior in divergent neighborhoods.
One can look at this differential treatment by police using the opportunity model of social disorganization. In places where a high degree of crime already exists, it is likely that more opportunities for law enforcers’ misconduct exist. Neighborhoods with high crime rates often have a large proportion of police patrols.
In fact, saturation patrolling is a common phenomenon in such locations. Police – resident contacts are too frequent, and this often leads to friction between the two groups. This elevates the potential for hostile encounters between residents in high-crime neighborhoods.
This means that when citizens need help, most of them will not find it from police officers. Law enforcers already have an abrasive attitude with them so this makes them less likely to help. Cases of over policing usually exist when law enforcers find the crimes.
However, if local residents take the initiative to inform the police about these crimes, they are likely to receive a poor response. Additionally, because street crime is common in these neighborhoods, then police have more opportunities to act in a corrupt way.
They can ignore calls for help and get away with it because of the degree of social disorder in those neighborhoods (Jacobs and O’Brien, 1998).
Terrill and Reisig (2003) found that police tend to be more corrupt and inefficient in disadvantaged areas. Law enforcers are inefficient because of stereotyping members of low class African American communities as troublesome.
Kane (2002) also makes a powerful argument when explaining why certain police officers fail to act satisfactorily after receiving domestic calls from predominantly black neighborhoods.
Using the social disorganization theory, he explains that most of these residents lack the power to constrain corrupt or biased behavior. Residents in socially disorganized locations are powerless against abusive law enforcement.
They do not have the capacity to lobby against police mistreatment, while residents in affluent or middle class neighborhoods know policy makers who can mobile against unethical police.
As a result, police can get away with indifference against distressed callers from predominantly poor neighborhoods even when this behavior is continuous.
Recommendations
Police institutions need to take responsibility for their actions by being their own critics. They need to implement mechanisms for diagnosing inappropriate responses to domestic calls from African American neighborhoods, and find immediate remedies for them.
Sometimes law enforcers are too quick to defend themselves or defend actions of their officers. It is necessary to have self critical measures that would eradicate this form of racism from the police.
Since differential responses to callers emanates from power relations, then policemen need to be subjected to immense scrutiny in order to avoid the abuse of power. Regardless of the reasoning applied police should not respond differently to callers; this is an unjustifiable act that must be corrected.
Some of the positive steps that police departments can take include establishments of an anti-racism policy and provision of training. An anti-racism policy should specifically talk about consistent and effective response to domestic callers.
In precincts where a lot of divergent behavior towards white and black communities thrives, a Race Relations unit ought to be instated. The unit would solve conflicts when they arise.
It would also provide information and mediate between those individuals who were victims of prejudiced behavior during phone calls.
Additionally, the unit would furnish the precinct with the necessary information on the matter. Alternatively, such divisions can set up community relations units for handling these biases (Ungerleider, 1992).
Aside from the use of reactive measures, to curb the practice, institutions ought to have preventive methods that would ensure police protect individuals irrespective of their economic status, race, or any other factor that causes bias.
First, administrators can set up evaluation mechanisms that assess arrest rates from predominantly black neighborhoods. They should determine whether these arrests occurred because of additional crime or because of negative attitudes held by police officers.
Such attitudes should be nipped in the bud before they manifest in poor helping behavior among black victims. Failure to do so could even lead to a high number of deaths among the group.
Police divisions ought to change their hiring programs in order to include members of diverse origins. Although this approach may not be the ultimate solution to racial biases in the police, at least it can be a useful tool for exposing officers to people of divergent origins.
Daily associations with such members can cause many of them to alter their attitudes towards people who are different from them. When instating the program, racial quotas should be met in order to realize the benefits of such a strategy fully.
Another preventive measure that should be employed by the police force is the implementation and improvement of community policing in predominantly black neighborhoods. As stated earlier, failed community policy can lead to resentment and disengagement between the police and residents.
This breeds an attitude of indifference that becomes visible when citizens make domestic calls. Administrators should train police officers on how to carry out community policing effectively. Genuine engagement with residents should be the main point of focus.
Diversity management policies should be considered by those in charge in order to ascertain that racist behavior does not occur. Prevalence of a code of conduct in an institution should be implemented so that it can have a real impact on the group concerned (Ungerleider, 1992).
Since some of the prejudices that police officers hold stem from the rest of society, then stakeholders should talk to the media about their approach to reporting crimes.
When law enforcers arrest a member of an ethnic minority group, the media will often describe the suspect using the person’s racial identity, yet they do not do the same for white suspects.
The use of these racially-based descriptions creates the perception that members of a certain race have criminal predispositions thus causing a bias in the public. These sentiments can rub-off on police officers who do their job based on these prejudices.
Conclusion
Studies support the research hypothesis; that police are slow to respond to domestic calls from predominantly black neighborhoods. They, however, respond quickly to domestic calls from predominantly white neighborhoods.
The history of interactions between the police and members of predominantly black neighborhoods illustrates this. Police develop an attitude of indifference to these communities and are thus less prone to act when they get distress calls from them.
Law enforcers also believe that such neighborhoods have a lot of repeat crimes, so they see no need to intervene in any situation hastily. Additionally, people in these neighborhoods have no ability to constrain or fight against corruption, so police can ignore their calls and get away with it.
The country lacks institutions that can punish people with racist behavior. Consequently, some of them may engage in this behavior when getting distress calls and no authority will persecute them.
Lastly, the police themselves perceive their positions to be powerful, and they also want to perpetuate the interests of those they perceive as powerful. These reasons explain why officers handle calls from predominantly black neighborhoods improperly.
Police divisions should alter the hiring programs and train their officers on how to respond to such calls consistently. Police departments should also enact evaluation policies on how police deal with cases from ethnic minorities.
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Gentrification in such neighborhoods as Harlem in New York City is discussed as the significant social transformation process. The association between gentrification and race is supported by the public and researchers because gentrification is a result of the economic development of neighborhoods where African Americans traditionally live (Bernt 3045; Pearsall 2297). Thus, gentrification in Harlem is a result of the arrival of white wealthy residents to these territories (Pearsall 2298). However, the nature of gentrification is more complex, and many researchers state that the racial relations observed between whites and blacks are only the consequences of the politically stimulated gentrification (Bernt 3045; Freeman 2083; Redfern 2354). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the connections between race and gentrification with references to the review of the recent researches in the field. Although the issue of race is often discussed as crucial to influence gentrification, race is only one among many factors used to describe gentrification because this complex social, economic, and political process is directly associated with investment in neighborhoods, promotion of the districts’ productivity, and housing policies.
Gentrification is initiated as the political process in order to improve the progress of concrete urban territories and affect them with the help of policies. In his article, Bernt supports the idea that gentrification is a mainly political process which is based on the promotion of different public policies oriented to developing the neighborhoods, as it is in Harlem of New York City. Focusing on the history of forming Harlem and on developing gentrification processes in the neighborhoods, the researcher applies Polanyi’s concept of a ‘double movement’ to the discussion in order to support the main hypothesis (Bernt 3047). According to Bernt, many public policies are designed in order to stimulate market forces in the neighborhoods and contribute to the urban development (Bernt 3045). The negative results of these processes are the changes in the social life of residents. That is why, African Americans living in Harlem become the first residents who are affected by the developing gentrification and who try to oppose the changes in the racial pattern of the districts.
The local government of New York City pays much attention to investing into the development of Harlem in order to support different segments of the market in the neighborhood. The increased investment leads to gentrification in the form of social and economic changes in the districts. Blacks and whites become involved in the process, and gentrification is discussed in the racial context. According to Freeman, gentrification is the process which affects not concrete racial groups, but social classes. The author states in his research that gentrification in the United States is associated with increasing the racial segregation because African Americans are often vulnerable while facing the economic results of gentrification (Freeman 2083). The diversity of neighborhoods increases because of changes in the social pattern of these districts. From this point, gentrification is based on the social and economic factors rather than on the factor of race.
The next aim of the governors who support gentrification is the increase in the urban productivity because the neighborhoods inhabited by African Americans usually demonstrate low rates in relation to the economic progress. The purpose of Pearsall’s research was to understand the origin of the African Americans’ resistance to gentrification. In his research, Pearsall analyzes gentrification from the perspective of the rent gap theory and with the focus on redevelopment programs used by the American governors to improve the urban productivity. The author found that many people, including African Americans living in the New York City’s neighborhoods resisted to gentrification because it changed social relations while affecting racial ones (Pearsall 2297). Furthermore, gentrification became the method to realize the urban sustainability plans and increase productivity of the regions (Pearsall 2298). From this perspective, the idea of race plays the key role while discussing residents who become involved in gentrification processes.
The development of the housing market and changes in the home equity gains associated with gentrification are the main causes of the racial conflict observed in such neighborhoods as Harlem. While prioritizing the role of economic and public issues in promoting gentrification, the researchers discuss race as one of the factors to describe the problem. That is why, the change in the housing market is often presented as one of the main characteristics of gentrification. According to Glick’s conclusions based on linking gentrification and wealth, the processes of gentrification are associated with significant increases in home equity gains, and black residents become affected most because of the impossibility to rent houses anymore (Glick 280). The racial disparity increases as well as the rates of migration to the other districts or cities. Glick states that gentrification is ‘racialized’ in a way because it is impossible to ignore the changes experienced by African Americans (Glick 285). Race becomes the framework to discuss the economic problem in detail. Glick’s ideas are also reflected in the visions presented by Goetz. Thus, Goetz conducted the research to discuss the racial dimension as the important factor to explain the economic changes. According to the researcher, gentrification is usually associated with the racial turnover in the neighborhoods, and it leads to reducing poverty (Goetz 1586). To support the idea that race is important for gentrification in the United States, Goetz refers to the economic data related to public housing, supporting the fact that the dynamics of gentrification depend on investment and administrators’ plans in relation to reductions of poverty at these territories.
Such researchers as Redfern, Lees, and Boyd chose to look at the problem of race in the gentrification process more thoroughly. Nevertheless, these researchers also state that the racial turnover, racial conflict, and any other changes involving the racial issues are only the side effects of the policies and programs promoting gentrification (Boyd 758; Lees 160; Redfern 2354). In this case, the race matters while discussing the actual relations between African Americans and white Americans which are the result of the supported gentrification. In his article, Redfern tries to answer the question about the nature of gentrification. Having conducted the theoretical research in the field, Redfern states that differences in the social status and the focus on the housing problem are the main features to characterize gentrification. The author also uses the term of ‘otherness’ in order to distinguish between gentrifiers, suburbanites, and displacees who differ in their financial status (Redfern 2354). In this case, the race can be discussed as only one dimension of the social and economic ‘otherness’ of the residents in neighborhoods.
Racial disparities lead to intensifying gentrification. The ideas similar to Redfern’s visions are presented in the article by Boyd. According to Boyd, the racial conflict plays the significant role in gentrification because blacks and whites are the main actors who are involved in the process in such neighborhoods as Harlem. While developing the discussion, Boyd notes that the production debates and the housing issues develop at the background of the complex racial conflict, but this conflict only describes the social situation in the neighborhoods (Boyd 758). Thus, Boyd operates the idea of ‘defensive development’ while discussing the problem (Boyd 760). Following Boyd’s visions, it is possible to discuss the racial conflict in the context of the socio-economic conflict of interests which involves the African Americans and white Americans because of differences in their status. As it was noted by Pearsall, in order to prevent any negative changes in their position, the African Americans resist to gentrification as the threat to their economic state (Pearsall 2293). Blacks and whites have to live in the neighborhoods which are reconstructed under the impact of gentrification. As a result, racial conflicts are obvious. However, these conflicts are only the post-effects of the implemented urban policy.
Race and gentrification are the notions which became directly associated because such territories as Harlem are gentrified with the focus on the arrival of many white residents who have higher incomes and more opportunities to contribute to the development of districts. However, gentrification is based not on the racial factor, but on the economic one. In the article, Lees presents the results of the qualitative research the purpose of which was to discuss the process of gentrification in the contexts of the Global North and Global South. Lees found that gentrification was a result of the process’s development based on the contemporary urban theories (Lees 155). Referring to the principles of comparative urbanism, the author noted that gentrification was based on a range of urban policies promoting it as well as on the economic differences. According to Lees, only the policy-making process is significant to discuss the development of gentrification in different regions (Lees 160). That is why, references to race while discussing gentrification can be considered as reasonable only when researchers focus on the progress of gentrification in the concrete region or neighborhood.
Gentrification cannot be discussed as the natural process based on the race factor because gentrification is the complex economic and social process which is a result of the developed policies promoted by governments in order to affect the productivity of the districts. From this point, in spite of the fact that gentrification and race are the connected notions, the association is only the result of the fact that the gentrified territories are usually districts where the racial disparity becomes the problem. Referring to the example of Harlem in New York City, it is important to note that the racial conflict between the African Americans and white Americans is the characteristic feature of the gentrification process in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, this factor helps to explain the laws of the process only in this concrete situation because there are many regions when gentrification solely depends on the economic differences. The researchers state that racial conflicts are only the side effects of gentrification as the political and economic process because the changes in the class status can lead to racism and shifts in the role of African Americans in neighborhoods.
Works Cited
Bernt, Matthias. “The ‘Double Movements’ of Neighbourhood Change: Gentrification and Public Policy in Harlem and Prenzlauer Berg”. Urban Studies 49.14 (2012): 3045-3062. Print.
Boyd, Michelle. “Defensive Development: The Role of Racial Conflict in Gentrification”. Urban Affairs Review 43.6 (2008): 751-776. Print.
Freeman, Lance. “Neighbourhood Diversity, Metropolitan Segregation and Gentrification: What Are the Links in the US?” Urban Studies 46.10 (2009): 2079-2101. Print.
Glick, Jonathan. “Gentrification and the Racialized Geography of Home Equity”. Urban Affairs Review 44.2 (2008): 280-295. Print.
Goetz, Edward. “Gentrification in Black and White: The Racial Impact of Public Housing Demolition in American Cities”. Urban Studies 48.8 (2011): 1581-1604. Print.
Lees, Loretta. “The Geography of Gentrification: Thinking through Comparative Urbanism”. Progress in Human Geography 36.2 (2012): 155–171. Print.
Pearsall, Hamil. “Superfund Me: A Study of Resistance to Gentrification in New York City”. Urban Studies 50.11 (2013): 2293-2310. Print.