However, the U.S. Justice Department has acknowledged that Ferguson's black population is being targeted by local law enforcement. The DOJ plans to pursue a court-supervised consent decree to change the city's practices. This means that if the number of racially driven police acts don't go down, the federal government will sue the Ferguson Police Department. I'm happy that they are addressing this, especially since it seems as though many have forgotten the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
With all of the events of the last few years, I think more and more about the world that my two young brothers will inherit. Nathan and Noah (and our sister Natalie) are three years old, and already their lives are very different from ours. Since they were born, the President of the United States has been a black man. They are so far removed from 9/11, that they will learn about it like we learned about the Chernobyl disaster. Most importantly, for the entirety of their lives, they will be unfairly judged by society.
"Young black men are perceived to "be more 'adult' than White juveniles when judging culpability," write researchers Adam Waytz, Kelly Marie Hoffman, and Sophie Trawalter. It is so unfair to make our boys into men long before their time; my brothers will not be 21 until 2032! In the meantime, we could acknowledge our biases against black males so that we may begin to change the way we think...
No comments :
Post a Comment