The United States of America. Land of the free. Where people can speak their minds, protest, and are given fair trials.
Well, for the most part, anyways. It depends on your state, race, social status, and gender.
On August 9, Michael Brown, an 18 year-old black teen, was shot at least six times by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. Many facts are unclear about what exactly happened, such as why Brown was shot. There was a report of a robbery in a convenience store, where even a Brown family lawyer has admitted that Michael Brown was apart of, allegedly stealing cigars with a friend. However, the police claim that Darren Wilson, the white 28 year-old police officer who killed Michael Brown, was unaware that Brown was the one who robbed the store. It also seems that Brown was holding his hands up in surrender whilst being shot.
Stealing cigars or being high is not an excuse to shoot someone. Darren Wilson had no reason to shoot Michael Brown at all, let alone six times. All it was was racism. Wilson saw a black teen, decided he was up to trouble, harassed Brown and his friend, and then killed him.
Wilson’s name was only recently released to the public, out of concern for his safety, and authorities are releasing very little information so as not to fan the flames of all of the protests going on in response to Brown’s death.
What lead to the shooting is where witness accounts and police accounts contradict, so let us go off of what we know at the moment.
First, whether or not Wilson knew that Brown was a part of the robbery does not make shooting an unarmed teenager acceptable. What’s funny is, Ferguson police are not giving the public much of a chance to feel sympathy towards Wilson, out of concern for his “safety.”
Though there is a lack of information, the people are still angry, and that anger is still justified.
Racism in Ferguson is nothing new. With a largely white police force and largely black town population, and data gathered by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office of racial profiling in Ferguson, it is no wonder why there is distrust between the people and the police. The militarization of the police on the protesters, using tear gas and rubber bullets, calling them animals, makes this abundantly clear. This would not have happened if white people were protesting.
However, racism is not just a problem in Ferguson.
There are plenty of cases that make the flaws in some states legal justice systems crystal clear. One that is slightly recent is the George Zimmerman trial.
Much like the Michael Brown case, George Zimmerman was a white Hispanic neighborhood watch captain who profiled and shot an unarmed black teen by the name of Trayvon Martin.
The mainstream media has a reputation of criminalizing black people instead of portraying them the same way they would portray a white person who was shot. When Michael Brown was killed, they used a photo of him that only made him look like a criminal.
There is currently a hashtag on twitter that is gaining more and more popularity since the death of Michael Brown. #IfTheyGunnedMeDown is a popular campaign in response to the incident, and mainly consists of the user with two pictures of themselves. One is a picture of them with their parents, graduating, in military uniform, performing a good deed or a notable achievement. The other photo is of them represented in a way that is deemed “thug life” by white people. Under these photos is the common caption: “#IfTheyGunnedMeDown, which photo will the media use?”
Clearly, there is racism in the mainstream media, but also in other aspects of America. Courts show obvious bias towards white people despite the obvious facts that the defendants are not innocent. Whether the media decides to depict the victim as an upstanding citizen or “thug,” we will not know until the actual crime is committed. The fact that we need to question this, however, is problematic to say the least.
Racial profiling is still very real, and is a huge problem. A problem that can end with one group of people dead and the other waltzing away from punishment, where they get reprimanded by the public, not the courts.
The bias in courts does not stop there.
Not only does being a white male give you a “get out of jail free” card, but being rich does too, as shown by a case of affluenza in Texas last January, when Ethan Couch, 16, drove under the influence, killed four people in the process, but evaded punishment because he is too rich to know any better. However, if Ethan Couch were poor and black, he would not have been let off with just probation.
Clearly, we are not all free, and the fact that you only need to be a white and rich male to avoid punishment despite killing people only proves this.
If you see absolutely no problem with the three cases discussed in this article, and you have failed to see the connections and flaws, please wake up. We are not “United States of America: Land of the Free,” but instead “Most States in America: Land of the Free.”
You are not free in your own country if you have to fear whether or not you will get shot because of your skin color. This isn’t the fault of the individual, it is the fault of the State. The State should protect you, regardless of race or financial situation. The State should not allow its citizens to feel fear of the fact that if they get shot, they will not receive justice if they have too much melanin.
#IfTheyGunnedMeDown is bringing attention to a topic that requires more attention, even though we should not have to continue with the injustice in our American institutions.
