In the aftermath of the Charlottesville, Virginia, race riots, Frontline brings us Documenting Hate: Charlottesville. A.C. Thompson, a journalist, has been following the recent boldness of white supremacists in America for several years now. This documentary is a discovery on several people and groups involved in the Charlottesville marches and riots as well as the preparation, reaction and response of the police surrounding this incident. 

The “Unite the Right” march, as it has been called, was the largest public white supremacy gathering in a generation. There have been several smaller protests and gatherings of this nature, some also violent, but Charlottesville was by far the deadliest. This documentary takes us through the events that took place in Charlottesville, the events leading up to it, and what transpired afterwards. 

What began as a protest on the removal of a Civil War statue quickly escalated into fights and riots between white supremacist groups and anti-fascist, anti-racist protesters. The apex of the violence occurred when someone drove a car through a crowd of protesters, hospitalizing nearly twenty and killing one woman. Most importantly, the documentary touches on the police response, before, during, and after these events. While we, in this class, have not discussed modern white supremacy to this degree, we have discussed how police practices and procedures have been implemented in racist, discriminatory ways, which is what my analysis will focus on.

This country has been built with the ideology of white supremacy, on the backs of black slaves. In his essay on white supremacy, Brian Stevenson (2018) explains how the criminal justice system was an extension of that ideology, dealing unjustly and unfairly toward black people. Today, our general society does not reflect this ideology, but our criminal justice system has been slower to change.  While this documentary is not about violence towards black people, it is about this ideology and the role that police have in perpetuating this ideology and violence on black people. Today, this violence does take the form as an attack on black people by the justice system, as it did a hundred years ago – nor is it to avoid lynchings and please the mob, as Stevenson would explain – but rather an idleness of the police when confronted with this ideology. 

Before the Charlottesville protests, the local police were woefully under prepared. State and federal authorities had not notified them on the type of people coming, namely bands of armed white supremacists. During the protests, while people were being attacked and while fights broke out, the police stood by and did not intervene. An example of this is the incident in a parking garage right next to a police station. DeAndre Harris, a black man and anti-racist protester, was savagely beaten by a group of white supremacists. He was battered with poles, metal pipes, and wooden boards, while the police stood by idly.

This example is just one of many that took place during the events that occurred. Marc Mauer (2018) explains that, although less visible than in the days of lynching, criminal justice practitioners still operate on these ideals based in racism, implementing and enforcing policies in racist, discriminatory ways. This can be seen as a lack of intervention for individuals such as Harris and groups such as the anti-racist protesters. 

Even afterward, the criminal justice response was insignificant. As a response to the murder of Heather Heyer, the woman that was killed in the car incident that hospitalized twenty people, it took several months to prosecute one individual, James Alex Fields, involved in the event. To this day, only a handful of individuals involved in the riots and fights have been charged or prosecuted with any crime. These individuals have, in general, been charged with hate crimes. To the general public, this is woefully inadequate. To the public eye, it looks as if these people have been allowed to incite and carry out hate crimes against minority individuals and simply walk away. This documentary criticizes the police for their apparent lack of action around the Virginia riots. The lack of response of the police have emboldened these groups to become mainstream, to protest in public and incite this level of violence with impunity and without fear of consequences. 

While not discussed directly in this documentary, race plays an important part in understanding the events that transpired. For anyone interested in modern-day white supremacy and the new rise of mainstream antagonists, this documentary is an informative watch. It highlights the part that police play in this conflict, and for an informed person, connects historical white supremacist ideals to modern-day policing. 

References

Mauer, M. (2018). The endurance of racial disparity in the criminal justice system. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 31-56). Vintage Books.

Stevenson, B. (2018). A presumption of guilt: the legacy of America’s history of racial injustice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 3-30). Vintage Books.

Thompson, A.C. (Producer). Rowley, R. (Director). (2018). Documenting Hate: Charlottesville[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/documenting-hate-charlottesville/

For my fourth media blog post, I decided to watch Part One of the Netflix series titled When They See Us. I never watched this series before, but I have heard about the Central Park five from readings in class. The Central Park five were all convicted of a rape of a woman that happened to be jogging in Central Park. This episode showed prime examples of racial discrimination. African Americans seem to always get the short end of the stick when it comes to the criminal justice system. Even in the nineteenth century, states looked up to the criminal justice system to form policies and strategies that maintain white supremacy (Stevenson 2018). Even our modern-day criminal justice system shows implicit bias towards African Americans.

The episode starts out in Harlem in April of 1989. Slowly, young African American boys are being introduced in the episode. They all end up in Central Park at the same time on the night of an alleged rape. Some of the boys are harassing other people in the park on bikes. Then, a fight breaks out between some of the boys and the police immediately start chasing and tackling boys. Some are taken into the police station and are forced to wait there until their parents pick them up, even though they had no affiliation with the fight at all.

Police become aware of a rape that occurred in Central Park on the same night. The woman that seems to be in charge of the case is absolutely convinced that these young boys have committed this gruesome crime. There are major issues with the timeline of the rape and the locations of the boys, but this does not ease her suspicions. Still convinced, she forces them into questioning, even though they are minors without their parents present. These interrogations are nothing but harsh. One by one, the investigators scream at the boys at the top of their lungs. These boys are not in any way aware of their rights and are engulfed with fear. The investigators convince them that other suspects have already told on them, and that they were the ones to rape the lady. They each begin to fabricate stories in order to save themselves, even though they have no idea who they are even telling on. With all different versions of confessions, it is clear these boys have no association with the rape or with each other.

The episode ends with the suspects all meeting together in one room. As they begin talking to each other and officially meeting for the first time, they realize the situation they are now in. The boys apologize to each other and share their versions of the confessions. The police clearly made each of them lie in hopes of being able to go home. Next, they are all handcuffed and being taken away in police cars. I assumed they were being taken to a juvenile detention center to await trial. It seems as if they were just looking for anyone to blame, and a group of black teenage boys was their perfect fit.

The first emotion that comes to mind while watching this was anger. While I was watching, I kept thinking to myself, “How are they even allowed to do this?”. I could not believe the way these young boys were being treated. It is clear they were discriminating them based off of the color of their skin, just because they could. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Why were these young boys treated like cold hard criminals for a crime it was obvious they had nothing to do with? There was no physical evidence that any of them had any affiliation with the crime.

The psychological abuse these boys went through while being questioned should have never happened, and I think it made the case incredibly messy. One specific piece of information that stuck out to me was that some of these boys were taken to the police station and were detained before the police were even aware of the rape that occurred. Since these boys were minors and it was most likely their first altercation with the police, they had no clue what they were doing. Now with five different versions of confessions, no one even knows what they are talking about or who they are convicting.

It is clear these boys were unfortunate victims of racial profiling before the term even existed. Less than a year after this initial altercation, the term “racial profiling” was first used in February of 1990. Racial profiling mainly involves police officers who consciously view black men suspiciously, even if they have no involvement with crime (Hutchins 2018). Some of the suspects were just picked up off the street, with no real connection to even being in the park the night before. In the eyes of the police officers, these teenage boys were guilty of the crime purely based on the color of their skin.

I would recommend this series to anyone who wants to learn more about the Central Park five and the wrongful abuse they suffered through. This episode provoked powerful emotions from me and had my full attention the entire time. I sat in shock at the way these young African American boys were treated. As I said before, I did know about the Central Park five before watching this episode. However, I do not think I would ever have felt this strongly about their situation if I never watched this episode.

References

DuVernay, A. (2019). When they see us. Retrieved from www.netflix.com

Hutchins, R. M. (2018) Racial Profiling: The law, the policy, and the practice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 95-116). Vintage Books.

Stevenson, B. (2018). A presumption of guilt: The legacy of America’s history of racial injustice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 3-20). Vintage Books.

Reviewed Media Source: 13th
Producers: Ava Duvernay, Howard Barish, & Spencer Averick
Release Date: October 7, 2016
Link: httphttp://://www.avaduvernay.com/13th/
The documentary 13th dived into the underlying roots which have established a long road of unequal treatment towards African Americans in our society and our criminal justice system. In this documentary, there were multiple statistics shown with harsh and troubling numbers about the incarceration of black men, and incarceration in general in the United States. It opens by explaining how the United States is responsible for a quarter of incarcerated people in the world, but only holds 5% of the world’s population. This opens the documentary with a very eye-opening statistic, as it continues, the focus on African Americans reveals the disturbing incentives of some of the leaders in our country. Focusing on the 13th amendment which abolished slavery was the goal when describing the loophole made within this amendment. A loophole that allows for members of society to still participate in free labor, only if they are convicted of a crime. This became a new way to legally enslave a group of people without directly saying that was what was happening. This only allowed for a new version of the same problems to be used and would contribute to new ways to incarcerate people of color.
This documentary touches on numerous sources that reveal old American racism. For example, the movie “The Birth of a Nation” gives an insight into the myths established about people of color and their relationship to crime and rape. This was a major influence on the concept of black guilt completely and shows a piece of history that contributed to that ideology. Shocking statistics such as every 1/4 black serving time in prison at a point in their life is just another one of the surprising facts stated in this documentary. The speakers explained how slavery went from a business to a legal method of punishment for criminals. Which also provides large amounts of profit for private and state prisons. There are points in which the speakers address the fear that had been put into the public about African Americans, including how different presidents played a part in these fears. Policies that were focused on areas of low socioeconomic status such as mandatory sentences only generated more money for bail and incarceration firms. The information about ALECS’s participation in law-making was also addressed which brought forth concerns about laws made to benefit and bring money in for corporate members. This documentary explains the path in which African Americans have been set up to fail and how policies and ideologies put into place have only fueled and targeted these incentives.
This documentary ties into our class discussion on mass incarceration in many ways. It supports many topics we have discussed such as the presumption of guilt or systematic racism. It has only supported many of our views on these topics and has further explained the origin in which they began. When we talk about the presumption of guilt, this has been a problem built off the years of a narrative that only portrayed African Americans as dangerous criminals. The idea of white people being better than black people have shined through the continuous targeting of this race in our criminal justice system. The ideology of white supremacy survived the civil war and shows in ways that are evident today (Davis, 2017). Systematic racism was addressed multiple times throughout the documentary, and this helped to explain how even when labeled as free, African Americans have never been free in this country. Rather than building a new system our policies and laws only contributed to maintaining white privilege. The racial inequality produced by mass incarceration has been influenced by the levers of law and political control (Davis, 2017). Politicians and policymakers created a system that would come off as being tough on crime while it aids a new way to get free labor from these individuals. This is another form of slavery and we can see how much it impacted incarceration rates because it was not just about public safety. It was more about the potential profit, regardless of the inequality shown. According to Davis (2017), “The birth of the United States was defined by the willingness to exploit people of color despite vaunted norms, values, and principles of equality” (p. 6). We discussed how black people are set up to fail often because they are put back into the general public with the inability to participate in normal activities such as certain jobs, college education at times, or even the right to vote. This goes back to when slavery was first abolished, something I learned from this documentary. These slaves were also put out into a world they were unprepared for because of years of being a second-class citizen to white people. These same practices can be seen in our system today because without examining the destruction that has been done, they are only set out to live a fate that ultimately has been chosen for them. This documentary brought forth connections of different topics we discussed, it helped to inform people of a criminal justice system and government which has continued to benefit from the oppression of African Americans. The publics’ beliefs about how the U.S has triumphed from racially pernicious practices, aids the racial status quo and reflects a natural ordering rather than a structured hierarchy. (Wacquant, 2002).
I personally watched this documentary when it first was released, and it unleashed a lot of feelings and questions for me. I was unaware of how much racism impacted the incarceration of African Americans. I knew the basics, but I did not know how deep it was and how much of a role our law and policymakers played. I believe that my classmates should watch this because it goes into the depth of the footprint racism has had on our criminal justice system and the laws that have been established. The summary I gave doesn’t even compare to the amount of information and theories addressed in this documentary. To fully understand how we got to the place we are now with mass incarceration, I believe this is the best documentary to truly explain that. Diving into the roots of this country is the only way to understand what steps led us here.

References
Davis, A. J. (Ed.) (2017). Policing the Black man: Arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment. Vintage.
Wacquant, L. (2002). From slavery to mass incarceration. New Left Review, 13.

The media that I chose to analyze for this blog post is the documentary “13th” by Ava DuVernay. This documentary points out many issues within the criminal justice system that lead to mass incarceration of minorities, specifically black men. It begins talking about the War on Drugs during the Reagan era. This “war on drugs” was really more of an excuse to persecute black men due to a hidden portion of the 13th Amendment. Many people are unaware of this, however, there is a clause within the 13th Amendment that states slavery is illegal UNLESS you have been committed of a crime. 

This documentary unpacks the hidden clause and how it has impacted mass incarceration. People being marginalized for crime is not something new. Previously in this course we learned that the arrest rates for African Americans are much larger than that of Caucasians for drugs and, sadly, not because there is that big of a difference in using. Plus, housing and food stamps can be extremely difficult for drug abusers to get after a drug related crime. It is talked about how difficult it is for people impacted by mass incarceration to reintegrate into society because they are no longer able to get jobs that are above minimum wage. This makes it hard for these people to either stay rehabilitated or to stay on the path of rehabilitation. Not to mention that it sends them into a life of poverty and debt from plea bargains and court fees leading to recidivism. 

The war on drugs was a big factor in marginalizing people of color. Many drug cases never even make trial, but instead are done through plea bargaining. This would mean that these possibly innocent people plea guilty because the likelihood of them being set free is minimal. “In 2010, a third of all black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 39 were imprisoned, compared with only 13 percent of their white peers.” (Coates, 2015) Mass incarceration has impacted minority families as well as their communities. With the imprisonment of a black man for drugs, there is a family that he is forced to leave behind. Leaving imbalance in communities is damaging to familial dynamics and feeds into poverty by forcing the families of those convicted to pay for the legal fees and wellbeing of their family members in prison.

Ava Duvernay & Jason Moran. (2016). 13TH. USA.

Coates, T. (2015). The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration. The Atlantic. 

Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/

Stevenson, B. (2018). A presumption of guilt: The legacy of America’s history of racial 

injustice. In A. J. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 3-20). Vintage Books.

Mauer, M. (2018). The endurance of racial disparity in the criminal justice system. In A. 

1. Davis, Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment (pp. 31-56). Vintage Books.

Getting Uncomfortable

For my second media blog post, I chose to watch a video from The Robina Annual Conference “Crime and Justice in America, 1975-2025”. Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University presented a talk titled “Race and Crime”. He brought up important points of why race and crime are related and ways we are able to make them unrelated in the future. I believe this video furthered my understanding of the connection between race and crime and helped me become more aware of this consequential issue. We should be using the law to correct this issue, but instead it is only worsening the problem. Although talking about race might become a little uncomfortable at times, it is something certainly worth talking about. It is impossible to talk about incarceration in the United States without mentioning race.

Fagan started off his talk with specific statistics relating to African American males and arrest rates. In the United States, there are nearly a million African American males in prison currently. He also mentioned that one in three African American males have some kind of criminal record. This reminded me of a quote from Not a Crime to Be Poor. The book states, “African Americans account for 6 percent of San Francisco’s population but comprised 70.4 percent of clients who came to an arrest and conviction clinic convened by the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in 2014” (Edelman, 2017, p. 63). It is evident that people of color pay the highest price even when they are clearly outnumbered.

One reason this is happening is because of racial profiling, which is when law enforcement use someone’s race as a reason to suspect a person has committed a crime. The use of racial profiling has destroyed the trust between people of color and the police. Jill Weber, a public defender from Oklahoma, states that the police there have a squad car at a stop sign in an African American dominated neighborhood and will arrest people for rolling through the stop sign (Edelman 2017). I think arresting someone for rolling through a stop sign is the biggest misuse of authority. Movements like #BlackLivesMatter show how dangerous racial profiling can truly become and why it needs to disappear in the near future.

Another reason crime and race are related is because of implicit bias. Everyone has implicit biases that they are completely unaware of and are a result of their own personal experience. We discussed implicit bias in class, and I was not surprised at my personal implicit biases. I think most people tend to be bias towards the race that they identify with, which might seem harmless but can become a real issue over time. I think this is why we need to have more diversity in the police force. Fagan states that in the New York City Police Department, only ten percent of the command ranks are non-white. In order to understand why that statistic is important, we have to realize how big the New York City Police Department actually is. There are almost 40,000 police officers meaning only 4,000 are non-white. Bias has a multiplier effect on everything around it. Fagan also brings up a series on CNN where Anderson Cooper interviewed young children about racial conflict. Even though these were young children, there was a profound racial bias present. This shows that racial bias is simply taught and can be avoidable.

In conclusion, race and crime are strongly related in today’s world. After watching the video, obviously there is a big issue we cannot ignore, which is a big reason why others should watch Jeffrey Fagan’s speech about race and crime. So, why is it so hard for us to talk about race? Race can be a genuinely tough topic to discuss and a person can receive hate for simply using the wrong terminology when speaking about it. However, in order to fix the issue, we must be addressing the topic. No matter how uncomfortable it might get, we need to be having these types of conversations. Even before watching the video, I was aware there was a connection between race and crime. Although, I did not realize how obvious this connection actually is. Maybe others are in the same situation I was in, which is why I think this video is important and should be shared to anyone wanting to know more information about race and crime. Jeffrey Fagan helps simply break down this issue and some ways we can try to put an end to it.

Reference List

Edelman, P. (2017). Not a Crime to Be Poor. New York: The New Press.

Jeffrey Fagan’s “Race and Crime”: https://robinainstitute.umn.edu/files/race-and-crime