Although racism is no longer
dominant, it still persists, as evidenced by multiple events where police have
been caught conducting in an unconstitutional and volatile manner to black
people as well as minorities. This blog post analyzes contrasting opinions and
provides my views on this controversial topic.
Arguing the legitimacy of Black
Lives Matter Movement
The American people have been
capturing multiple occasions, where the police have been treating black people
in a brutal and an unethical manner. Many of these videos have gone viral,
which has spurred many news outlets to post editorial pieces. The two major
sources that I will be discussing in this blog posts will be from the Huffington Post and Fox News, who have wrote contrasting
opinions on the topic of police brutality, and the protests that have been
spurred from these events. Both pieces examine the consequences of these
events, arguing whether it produced a positive or a negative impact. The Huffington Post article, “The
Ferguson Protests Worked” written by Julia Craven, Ryan
J.Reilly, and Mariah Stewart argues that the overall protest produced a net
benefit in our society, despite some mishaps. On the other end of the spectrum,
the Fox News article, “Bill
O’Reilly: What the Ferguson protesters accomplished”
written by Bill O’Reilly, provides his opinion about the protesters. In his
article, he defends the police and alleges that the protesters have prevented
the police from carrying out their full responsibilities. The authors of the Huffington Post article claim that the
protests have been largely peaceful, and give numerous examples of reforms that
have been passed as result of these protests. One such example is when the
State of Missouri legislated a new law that severely imposed restrictions on
revenue collection by the local police departments. The activism of the
protesters pushed the President Obama to assign a committee that investigated the
various unjustified cases of police brutality. After the investigation was
completed, the committee recommended the police departments to eradicate quota
imposed revenue collection, suggested reforms like body cameras, as well as the employment
of social media to connect with their communities. Congress also succumbed to the
pressure, as it passed a budget bill of $20 million, which would allow some of
these reforms to be implemented all over the country. Bill O’Reilly shares the
opposite view, claiming that these protests have “[…] set back race relations
in America years. The violent protests actually created more
bias against blacks.” Although some violence have occurred, many pictures that have been
posted on the Internet show protesters both black and white marching in
harmony.
Author:
Aimee LeBlanc
The
protesters of this movement are not only black but also white. The woman in the
photo above is holding a peaceful sign.
O’Reilly
boldly asserts that these protests have only proliferated the negative
stereotypes of black people. He provides statistics, which alleges: “In
the past 50 years, the rate of black Americans killed by police has dropped 70 percent”.
This data insinuates that the protests are not necessary, however such an
assertion would be given more weight if he had cited his sources. He also says,
“99.9 percent of all police arrests do not result in a
fatality”. O’Reilly’s statistics would have been more believable if he
had referenced any research articles.
Pew Research Disputes
O’Reilly’s Claim
O’Reilly
statistics suggests that the relationship between the police and black people
are in good standing. However, the Pew Research article, “Ferguson
highlights deep divisions between blacks and whites in America”
written by Bruce Drake, shows that black people do not share
the same view of the cops as O’Reilly. When black people were asked about
trusting the police, the data indicated that only “[…] 36% of whites
express a great deal of confidence compared with 18% of blacks” (Drake). If there are such low levels of trust
being demonstrated by black people, this implies there are have been far more
cases of police brutality that have not been caught on camera. This data also
tells that these misconducts are not a recent trend, rather it has been ongoing
for a long time, and has just begun to be covered by the media. Finally, this
research also disputes the claim that institutionalized racism or prejudice has
been completely eliminated, rather it should serve as evidence to encourage
more reforms and better training for the police.
Who
is right?
O’Reilly’s article provides lots of
numbers to support his opinion, but neither hyperlinks or cites them to show
that it is authentic data. He also asserts that most protests have been
violent, although this is false, as many pictures on the Internet display that
the majority of these events have been peacefully organized.
Author: Chris Wieland
Title: #Ferguson protest in Memphis
On the other hand, the Huffington Post article does not dispute that there have been some violent events. It only argues most have carried out non-violently,
which has also managed to produce some favorable outcomes that is helping the
nation as a whole. The Huffington Post
article not only provides legitimate data, but it also addresses some the
criticisms outputted by the other side, rather than blankly asserting that the movement
is either a positive or a negative force, which O’Reilly’s article seems to exemplify.
Abhinav Mishra is a student
at Northern Virginia Community College, who writes about historical and
contemporary topics that interest him.
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