{"id":733,"date":"2014-08-18T15:48:58","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T20:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sociologytoolbox.com\/?p=733"},"modified":"2016-05-23T10:01:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T16:01:29","slug":"racism-police-ferguson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/toolbox\/racism-police-ferguson\/","title":{"rendered":"RACISM AND THE POLICE: The Shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson"},"content":{"rendered":"

*For a look at the patterns that have emerged in the police shootings of unarmed black citizens since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Systematic racism has been made evident again in the shooting of an unarmed young Black man, Michael Brown, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.\u00a0Pulling stories directly\u00a0from recent\u00a0news headlines is one way to get students’ attention and demonstrate the abundant relevance of the sociological perspective.\u00a0The New York Times has a timeline<\/a> of the events that serves as a useful starting point (from the mainstream media) to share the events with students that may have not kept\u00a0up with the story.<\/p>\n

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The community of Ferguson, Missouri (the site of the shooting) has responded with on-going mass protests.<\/p>\n

Ferguson cannot be understood\u00a0in a vacuum. These events are rich with sociological issues – \u00a0inequality and poverty, racial profiling, the militarization of the police, protester and police interaction, social media (#Ferguson and hashtag activism) and the “criminalization of Black male youth”.<\/p>\n

Looking first at the disproportionate levels of poverty and subsequent exclusion from the economy\u00a0of many Blacks in the US, Brookings, a Democratic leaning think tank, analyzed census tract data of changes in the poverty rates in Ferguson (and the surrounding area) between 2000 and 2008-2012. \u00a0They state:<\/p>\n

“But Ferguson has also been home to dramatic economic changes in recent years. The city\u2019s unemployment rate rose from less than 5 percent in 2000 to over 13 percent in 2010-12. For those residents who were employed, inflation-adjusted average earnings fell by one-third. The number of households using federal Housing Choice Vouchers climbed from roughly 300 in 2000 to more than 800 by the end of the decade.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Amid these changes, poverty skyrocketed. Between 2000 and 2010-2012, Ferguson\u2019s poor population doubled. By the end of that period, roughly one in four residents lived below the federal poverty line ($23,492 for a family of four in 2012), and 44 percent fell below twice that level.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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The community of Ferguson, one of many that have been disproportionally hurt by the economic downturn, has experienced long term poverty, and this undoubtedly\u00a0\u00a0was part<\/em> of the mass frustration that contributed to the emergence of\u00a0the protests. See Brookings web site<\/a>\u00a0for their full story.<\/p>\n

However, the key grievance that seems to have inspired mass protest is the relationship between the police and the community. In previous posts I have explored the disproportionate number of Blacks incarcerated<\/a>, arrested for drugs<\/a>, and racially profiled<\/a> under programs such as “Stop and Frisk”. While the population of Ferguson is 63% Black, 90% of the police officers are White. As noted by the New York Times (see below), Blacks in Ferguson are disproportionally stopped and arrested by the predominantly White police force.<\/p>\n

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An FBI and federal justice department investigation is on-going and reports of the events present conflicting stories – an eye witness that was with the victim at the time says Michael had his hands up, but slowly emerging (which certainly adds to the distrust)\u00a0police accounts argue that an unarmed Michael was in a confrontation with\u00a0the officer. The job of the police is to make arrests and allow a court system to decide guilt. The police later released images from a video of a suspect robbing a convenience store (no weapons were used). Let’s just say it was Michael (that would still have to be proven). A police officer should be able to subdue a suspect without shooting him six times. In essence, (presuming guilt instead of innocence) Michael was sentenced to death for supposedly stealing a handful of cigars.<\/p>\n

The police responses to the protests in Ferguson have exposed the results of the militarization of municipal police forces. Images of police in full military gear, helmets, armored vehicles, sharp-shooters, high caliber weaponry, and military fatigues certainly garnered the attention of the media.<\/p>\n

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The distribution of military weaponry to local police departments began after the terrorist attacks of September 11th under the guise of preparing communities for foreign attacks. Now we see this weaponry and accompanying tactics used in our own communities. The saying, “If all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail” comes to mind.<\/p>\n

This weaponry has been widely distributed.<\/p>\n

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Click on the map above\u00a0to have students go to an interactive version that allows them to see the distribution of the weaponry in their county. For example, I can see that in Cook county, home to my city of residence, Chicago, the police have obtained over 1200 assault rifles and even three “mine resistant” vehicles.<\/p>\n

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The use of these weapons and tactics is not limited to Ferguson. In June of 2014, the ACLU published the following report:<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>In it they report the increased use of SWAT tactics for search warrants for low level drug investigations and that the “militarization of policing encourages officers to adopt a ‘warrior’ mentality\u00a0and think of the people they are supposed to serve as enemies”<\/strong> (p.3). These tactics and mentality have resulted in the deaths of innocent people, including infants and children (see the report for numerous stories).<\/p>\n

Do these tactics pay off? According to the ACLU’s research, the majority of the time they do not. Drugs are only found about a third of the time.<\/p>\n

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And these tactics are used disproportionately in cases involving racial and ethnic minority suspects.<\/p>\n

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So, was this an isolated event among two individuals – the officer and Michael Brown? No. Sociologically,\u00a0the impoverished community context likely leads to community members feeling\u00a0disconnected from\u00a0the rewards of mainstream society, the stereotyping of Black males as “thugs” and criminals likely added to the officer’s fear of Michael and activated socially constructed\u00a0cognitive cues\u00a0of “danger”, the community’s response is generated by local and national racial profiling by the police and a lack of minority representation among the officers, and the type of police response to the protests was\u00a0a result of the militarization of the police driven by the “war on terror” and the power of the military industrial complex in our economy (and foreign policy).<\/p>\n

Teach well, it matters.<\/p>\n

Additional reading:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Elijah Anderson, Editor. 2009.\u00a0Against the Wall:\u00a0<\/span>Poor, Young, Black, and Male<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Kate Harding. 2014. “Ten Things White People Can Do About Ferguson Besides Tweet <\/a>“<\/span><\/p>\n

Viktor M. Rios. 2006. “The Hyper-Criminalization of Black and Latino Male Youth in the Era of Mass Incarceration”<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert Sampson and William Julius Wilson. 2005. “Toward a Theory of Race, Crime and Inequality” in\u00a0Race, Crime, and Justice: A Reader<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>edited by\u00a0Shaun L. Gabbidon\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Helen Taylor Greene<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nick Wing. 2014. \u00a0“When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims”<\/a><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

ADDENDUMS<\/p>\n

Click on the image below to be redirected to\u00a0a related post from this blog.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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August 20th, 2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Recent Gallup survey results show vastly different perceptions of the police. These are not skewed by the events in Ferguson as the data is from 2011-14, but they certainly explain some of the resulting protests.<\/p>\n

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August 21, 2014<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Below is a link to a good article on the challenges and weaknesses of the data on the number of people killed by police each year. It’s great to inspire critical thinking about facts.<\/p>\n

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Here is polling data\u00a0specific to this event from the Pew Research Center…<\/p>\n

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August 26th\u00a0(click on the images to link to the full stories)<\/p>\n

“…the chief obstacle to having an intelligent, or even intelligible, conversation across the racial divide is that on average white Americans live in communities that face far fewer problems and talk mostly to other white people.” (click on the below for the full article)<\/span><\/p>\n

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August 30th, 2014<\/p>\n

Another example of police officers shooting to kill based on race. Click below for the full article.<\/p>\n

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November 24th, 2014\u00a0(click on the images to link to the full stories)<\/p>\n

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…<\/p>\n

November 30th, 2014<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

December 2nd, 2014\u00a0(click on the images to link to the full stories)<\/p>\n

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. . .\u00a0\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

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December 8th, 2014 (click on the images to link to the full stories)<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

December 9th, 2014 (click image for original source)<\/p>\n

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December 12th, 2014 \u00a0(click image for original source)<\/p>\n

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“The phrase “black-on-black crime” makes sense only if you understand black people’s propensity to commit crimes against people of their own race as inherently different from the way other racial groups commit crimes.”<\/p>\n

“Far from being extraordinary, the fact that black criminals are most likely to commit crimes against black people makes them just like everybody else. A more honest term than “black-on-black crime” would be, simply, ‘crime.'”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>“Surrender is the heart of the legal standard for the use of deadly force by police. When confronted with an officer’s weapon, you must back down quickly and unambiguously or die. The law demands surrender, and men like Michael Brown do not show enough of it. This terrible fact\u2014a one-sided battle of stereotypes and a conversation cut short between two young men\u2014leaves us to wonder what justice would be in cases like this.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

December 19th, 2014 (click on the image to go to the original link)<\/p>\n

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December 20th, 2014<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

December 30th, 2014<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

January 14, 2015 …I just came across this\u00a0survey data covering opinion about the verdicts in\u00a0Ferguson and Long Island. It is\u00a0from about a month ago.<\/p>\n

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. . . .<\/p>\n

January 22, 2015<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/a><\/p>\n

March 2, 2015<\/p>\n

“Blacks accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops in 2013 but make up 63 percent of the population, according to the most recent data published by the Missouri attorney general. And once they were stopped, black drivers were twice as likely to be searched, even though searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Screen<\/a>. . .<\/p>\n

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March 4th, 2015<\/p>\n

Justice Department finds racialized patterns within the action of the Ferguson Police Department.<\/p>\n

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But clears Darren Wilson of any charges…<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

My article in Contexts on teaching about Ferguson from a sociological perspective…<\/p>\n

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March 5, 2015<\/p>\n

Read the full justice department report here<\/a><\/p>\n

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New York Times visual graphics of “what happened in Ferguson” (click the image to go to the full story)<\/p>\n

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. . .<\/p>\n

A good article (that I use in my class) on the patterns of and \u00a0institutional support for the epidemic of police killings of unarmed black males:<\/p>\n

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Common structure:<\/p>\n