life of the black people in America and the paradoxes of America’s black politics
In our critique today, we are going to look at an author by the name Juliet Hooker. In her article, Juliet has written about the life of the black people in America and the paradoxes of America’s black politics. The major focus of this article by Juliet Hooker is to fathom the complex response to the current black lives matter protest against police violence. In America, there has been a racial terror since the 19th century when black people worked as slaves in the white men’s plantation. The most stressful thing is that even after the end of the slavery era, black life is still not respected enough in America. The reason why the author has been this prolific about this topic is that she is a professor of political science. According to her profile, she is a political theorist specializing in racial justice, multiculturalism, Latin American political thought, Black political thought, and Afro-descendant and indigenous politics in Latin America.
In America today, most black people have a history of police harassment because of their race. It seems that justice in America is only for white people. While there have been campaigns about police brutality in America and other corners of the world about police brutality, it is still evident that the police force is still using their powers inappropriately on matters concerning black lives. According to statistics, a police shooting in the united states is still increasing with a total of 506 civilians already shot, among these 506, 105 of them are black people, which is in the year 2018 only.
Major Points
If we tend to go back to the article, we can note that Juliet’s major point police brutality towards black lives. It is because of these police brutality acts that there have been protests all over. The peak of these protests started in august 2014, this was because of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Sadly, very little has changed in America, just the other day it was all over the news when a police officer killed another unarmed black man by the name George Floyd by pressing his knee against the victim’s neck. This issue causes a protest that has never been witnessed all over the world. America has been convulsed by the national wide protest over the death of an African American man in police custody. In this case, we can give credit to technology because there is footage of the arrest that happened on 25th May showing a white police officer kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck while he was pinned to the floor. The police officer however was apprehended to the court of law and he was charged with second-degree murder.
The other point that the Juliet has focused on is the democratic theory, just to mention, this theory indicates that democracy requires three fundamental principles, that is, upward control, political equality and social norms by which individuals and institutions only consider acceptable acts and that reflect the first two principles. On the contrary, democratic politics in the U.S has been characterized by loss, and this has resulted in one of the central tasks facing democracies is the challenge of managing the experience of loss. Democracy inspires citizens to aspire for sovereignty but their experience is more often of a frustrated agency. According to democratic theory, the losses experienced by citizens are justified because they fall on to them arbitrarily; that is, anyone can lose or win a public policy debate, thus there are no systematic losers or winners. This kind of democratic loss has led to great sacrifice, and in most cases, this sacrifice is the black lives.
Critique
From the article, it is evident that black lives have been facing a lot of brutality from the police in the United States. The author also says that there are black lives matters protest movements, some spearheaded by white and others by blacks. Unfortunately, these movements have failed in emulating the political standard of the civil rights movement of 1960. Juliet indicates that black live matters protestors have been critiqued that they fail in showing the required discipline of non-violence movements and demonstrations during their anti-racism struggles.
I have to agree with the author that most racial groups in America protest with anger, during these protests, they tend to be violent and uncontrollable. In America, violence is redressed with the police force, which is why these racial groups will continually face encounters with the police. Generally, matters of protest are covered by the media, this means that everything that is happening is being watched in that country and globally. As Juliet has mentioned, most black community protest is violent, this displays a bad picture of them which in turn makes it very difficult for black politics in America to thrive.
Conclusion
Conclusively, we have learned that black lives in America today has not changed very much, most black people still live in fear of being harassed by the police and the white community altogether. This racial disparity has brought about anger that causes black people to protest with violence sometimes. This prints a bad picture of black people to the face of American. We have also learned that there are black lives matters movements that tries sell the idea of equal treatment and equal rights but they have not excelled in their actions, and thus we can say that while there have been campaigns about police brutality in America and other corners of the world about police brutality, it is still evident that the police force is still using their powers inappropriately on matters concerning black lives.