Racism Through The Eyes of A White Woman

During the reconstruction era , black people slowly gained the constitutional rights of which they were deprived during slavery. Although they would not gain full constitutional equality for another century when the Civil Rights Act of was passed, reconstruction promised African Americans equality for the first time. However, abolishing slavery did not abolish racism. Those who were able to pass as white often engaged in tactical passing , or passing as white in order to get a job, go to school, or to travel. Becoming white is much more controversial now: The US civil rights leader Walter Francis White who was blond-haired, blue-eyed, and very fair was of mixed-race background, mostly European ancestry, as 27 of his 32 great-great-great-grandparents were white; the other five were classified as black and had been slaves.

He grew up with his parents and family in Atlanta in the black community and identified with it. In the earlier stages of his career, he conducted investigations in the South, during which he sometimes passed as white to gather information more freely on lynchings and hate crimes , and to protect himself in socially hostile environments. In the 20th century, Krazy Kat comics creator George Herriman was a Louisiana Creole cartoonist born to mulatto parents, who claimed Greek heritage throughout his adult life.

The 20th-century writer and critic Anatole Broyard was a Louisiana Creole who chose to pass for white in his adult life in New York City and Connecticut. He wanted to create an independent writing life and not be classified as a black writer. In addition, he did not identify with northern urban black people, whose experiences had been much different from his as a child in New Orleans' Creole community. He married an American woman of European descent.

His wife and many of his friends knew he was partly black in ancestry. His daughter Bliss Broyard did not find out until after her father's death. In , she published a memoir that traced her exploration of her father's life and family mysteries entitled One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life: A Story of Race and Family Secrets. A good example of "racial passing" in the modern day, would be Rachel Dolezal.

Her attempt at passing was in order to gain the support of the black community and rise through the ranks of the NAACP in Spokane. In 21st-century intersectional discourse, the term "white-passing" refers to someone who identifies as a person of color but benefits from white privilege due to their appearance. In a limited reversal of the usual pattern, some people of European ancestry have chosen to pass as members of other races. In the New Age and Hippie movements, non-Native people sometimes have attempted to pass as Native American or other Indigenous medicine people.

The pejorative term for such people is " plastic shaman ". The author and environmentalist Grey Owl was a white British man named Archibald Belaney, rather than First Nations as he claimed to be. When asked to explain his European appearance, he lied and claimed he was half Scottish and half Apache. Belaney performed what he said were Ojibwe traditions and wilderness skills, and adopted an anachronistic and stereotypical lifestyle, as part of a persona which he was very successful in marketing to non-Native audiences.

Initially only playing Indians in movies and television, eventually he wore his film costumes full-time and insisted he actually was Cherokee and Cree. European-American authors and artists who have notably attempted to pass as being indigenous include Ku Klux Klan leader and segregationist speech writer, Asa Earl Carter , who attempted to reinvent himself as Cherokee author Forrest Carter, author of the novel The Education of Little Tree. Jay Marks , a man of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, adopted the pen name of Jamake Highwater about , claiming to be Cherokee - Blackfeet , and published numerous books under that name.

He won awards and NEA grants. Artist Yeffe Kimball claimed to be Osage. His claims were rejected by both tribes. It requires artists to be enrolled members of a state or federally recognized tribe in order to claim to be a Native American artist. If we believe in Indigenous self-determination as a value and goal, then questions of identity and integrity in its expression cannot be treated as merely a distraction from supposedly more important issues.

Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal , then president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP , claimed in a February profile to have been born in a "Montana tepee" and have hunted for food with her family as a child "with bows and arrows". In Dolezal's mother disputed her daughter's accounts, saying that the family's ancestry was Czech, Swedish, and German, with "faint traces" of Native American heritage. She also denied various claims made by her daughter about her life, including having lived in Africa when young.

In , Vijay Chokalingam, the brother of Indian-American entertainer Mindy Kaling , told CNN that he had pretended to be black years before in order to take advantage of affirmative action to be admitted into medical school. In the s he assumed a new identity, claiming to be an Indian named Korla Pandit and fabricating a history of birth in New Delhi , India to a Brahmin priest and a French opera singer. He established a career in this exotic persona, described as an "Indian Liberace ".

Two years after his death in , his true ethnic identity was revealed in an article by Los Angeles magazine editor R. There were three ways to avoid being shipped off to the death camps: No option was perfect, and all carried the risk of getting caught. One year, one of the few black students at my high school found a noose hanging in his locker one day.

The culprit — a white student — was quickly discovered, and all he had to do to get out of trouble was issue a lame apology.

Passing (racial identity)

I thought his punishment should have been more severe. I convinced my best friend to wear black armbands in school to protest. This act earned me no greater respect, and actually greater ridicule. Several of our teachers thought it was funny and even prompted our classmates to laugh at our expense: Looking back, I realize that, apart from my black armband episode, my survival strategy was to make myself as non-threatening as possible. I became so well-practiced in the art of not offending racist white people that I ceased to become outraged by them, at least when they affected me directly.

I knew how to enter a store, to make eye contact with someone who worked there, to smile and say hello as if to say: While shopping, I still assume that I am suspect. There was a moment in my adulthood when I decided that the present order is intolerable and a new world is both possible and necessary. In the grand scheme of things, my experiences of everyday racism are not that important. I am neither the most privileged nor most oppressed. I know that there are people of all stripes who are trying to survive on this planet with fewer resources than I have.

I am consistently inspired by the words of the early 20th-century socialist Eugene V Debs a white guy! I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. I am also inspired by the words of Malcolm X, who summarized the goals of the black movement as: Respect as human beings!

Akai Gurley's death gained coverage because of its timing of happening within days of the grand juries in both the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases declining to indict the officers involved. Many images of Akai were used in news articles. The most flagrant image of Akai Gurley's mug shot was used by at least two international media sources. Beyond the use of mug shots, many of the images published of Gurley show him wearing urban fashion styles: All of these images are associated with Blackness specifically, which are in turn linked to this idea of criminality Davis, ; Muhammad, In addition to Gurley's appearance is the location of his death.

Moreover the majority of those being incarcerated from New York City come from one of seven neighborhoods, East New York being one of them. The Pink Houses is a notorious New York City public housing complex making several online sites' worst housing projects Ettelson, The article discusses the collapse and neglect of the Pink Houses, particularly the lack of proper lighting in the hallways and uncleanliness of the environment. While the article is addressing real concerns of environmental justice and public safety issues, the timing of its release becomes an issue.

From the beginning the NYPD claimed this shooting to be an accident because of lack of lighting in the hallways, which once again shifts the blame from the NYPD officer who killed Gurley to city government. In addition, the theme of continually expressing how violent the Pink Houses are does two things: Again, shift the blame from the officer who did not use proper training tactics and 2. Negates Gurley's death as a victim because he is associated with the Pink Houses which is linked to violence, therefore implicating Gurley as a criminal or violent.

The micro-insults and micro-invalidations of Akai Gurley come out in a particular manner of subversive text and imagery to take the focus off the particular case of excessive police violence but rather focus on the physical character and appearance of Gurley and the location and environment of the event. Tamir Rice's death was met with questions of lifestyle and behavior. However, the themes of micro-insults and micro-invalidations were expanded to include Rice's mother as part of his death.

The first and most shocking theme that emerged out of this case of a twelve-year old child being shot and killed by law enforcement was the discussion of who was to blame. Initially, the city of Cleveland, Ohio announced that Rice caused his own death:. The city also stated in their response, obtained by Cleveland. This blaming of a child for his own demise by a professional law enforcement agent is a micro-invalidation of his death. It puts the ownership on the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Other forms of micro-insults towards the death of Tamir Rice were in the form of blame and lifestyle of his mother. Many on social media outlets were pondering and posing the question: Why did his mother allow Tamir Rice to play with a realistic-looking fake gun? Again, this is a micro-insult, which implies Tamir's mother was not a good parent and did not exercise good parenting skills. This also reinforces micro-invalidation of Tamir's life because it implies his fault that he was shot for playing with this gun. Tamir Rice's mother, Samaria Rice's character became the focus. An article on Cleveland.

This irrelevant connection to a previous drug charge becomes a way to invalidate and negate Tamir's death and his mother's credibility as a parent. More recently, Samaria Rice has moved into a homeless shelter, which would also give a negative connotation of her unfit parenting and ability provide for her children, therefore to blame for Tamir's unsupervised playing with a toy gun.

Like other cases, this case shifts the focus from excessive force by law enforcement and puts blame on the victim and victim's family. The perception of Tony Robinson was overwhelming concentrated on the behavior that immediately preceded his death, prompting a number of micro-invalidations and micro-insults based on presumed criminality:.

Authorities have said Robinson, who was unarmed, was shot multiple times after he assaulted Officer Matt Kenny, punching him in the head and knocking him off balance. Anthony Robinson, 19, was killed about 6: Officers were told a man was jumping in and out of traffic and was suspected of committing battery before he ran into an apartment, he said. An officer forced his way inside after hearing sounds of a disturbance, where Robinson struck the officer in the head, Koval said.

The officer then fired his weapon. Robinson was shot after Officer Matt Kenny responded to calls about a man dodging cars in traffic who had allegedly battered another person, according to police officials. They said Kenny fired after Robinson attacked him. One newspaper, a local outlet, highlighted Robinson's past behavior that included criminality:. Wisconsin court records show that Mr. Robinson pleaded guilty to armed robbery last year and received a probated six-month sentence.

Chief Koval declined to comment on Mr. Much of the narrative surrounding Freddie Gray focused on the behavior immediately prior to his arrest. Many considered his behavior suspicious and thereby warranted a presumption of criminality, resulting in examples of micro-insults:. Four bicycle officers tried to stop Gray about 9 a. He ran, police said, and the officers caught him and restrained him on the ground while awaiting backup.

In a police report filed with the court, Officer Garrett Miller wrote that Gray was stopped after fleeing "unprovoked upon noticing police presence. Also notable in Gray's posthumous portrayal were micro-invalidation, which emphasized both, where he lived, known to be one of the more impoverished and crime-heavy neighborhoods in Baltimore, and also his prior interactions with law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

A few newspaper outlets included his physical composition:. Gray was a year-old resident of the neighborhood around the Gilmor Homes, a Baltimore Housing Authority project. He stood 5 feet 8 and weighed pounds. He had a police record, mainly on drug charges and minor crimes, according to court records reported by the Baltimore Sun. Court records indicate that Gray's arrests were mostly for drug charges and minor crimes, and sometimes were not prosecuted.

He had several cases scheduled for trial in the coming months. One case, involving charges for second-degree assault and malicious destruction of property, was scheduled for a June trial. He also faced drug charges that were scheduled for trial in April and May. He has been found guilty of drug charges in the past; his sentences were unclear from court records.

Associated Data

While media depictions of Black bodies have remained compliant to White supremacist structures using body type, negative images e. The purpose of this study is not to accuse any individual of holding those values, but to recognize how White privilege and other forms of privilege allow journalists and other media outlets to report on these cases the way they do, without self-reflection of how the words, images, and storylines are disseminated.

These narratives play a role in the initial assumption of the victim and can shift the perspective of how these victims are viewed. In this last section, we discuss the overall movement that has grown in wake of these deaths, BlackLivesMatter.

It is important to recognize social movements and their usefulness in gaining equality. In the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, which occurred less than a month apart in Summer , activists, students, and many groups of various racial, class, and social backgrounds came together to protest the ways in which law enforcement handled these situations. Other cities around the country took notice and joined in solidarity. Fast forward to November , when both the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases were dismissed because grand juries decided to not indict either officer involved in these cases.

The first decision came in the Michael Brown case. Contradictory testimony from eyewitnesses, racial tension in the community of Ferguson, and a prosecutor who seemed to not do his job dictated this case. However, the main argument was that there was no video evidence that confirmed either side's story.

Viewpoint: Why racism in US is worse than in Europe - BBC News

Conversely, a week later, a grand jury in Staten Island, New York, put forth a non-indictment verdict for the officer who was implicated in killing Eric Garner. The main difference in this case from Ferguson was the video evidence. Over the next several days and weeks leading into the holiday season, mass movements began to emerge across U. The answer is simple: If Black lives mattered in the United States, we would not see such disproportional rates of poverty, incarceration, school drop-out, lack of secure housing and other socially significant factors.

To not recognize racism as an ongoing problem only exacerbates the issue, silences and marginalizes those affected by it, and does not start the process of discourse on how to change cultural and social paradigms in society that only see young Black men as thugs. As previously mentioned, the aim of this study is not to accuse the selected newspaper outlets of intentionally perpetuating a negative or insensitive racialized portrayal of any of the aforementioned victims of police brutality. We cannot ascertain the mindsets of neither the authors nor the editorial staffs who finalized the articles' publication, so to make such assumptions would be highly flawed and unethical.

However, this study aims to highlight that the White-dominated media, newspapers included, is operated under the perspective of White privilege. Simply put, it is not their obligation to understand, let alone acknowledge, that what they believe to be a compliment, a term of endearment, a simple observation, or even the presentation of facts is anything but what they intended it to be.

For as much as it seems that little progress has been made in the efforts to promote true racial equality, such blatant expressions of racial hatred are usually met with the highest levels of condemnation in American society. The resulting adjustments made are that an individual who aims to exert their White supremacy over a person of color is socially inclined to do so via coded language — micro-aggressions, as previously detailed — as its subtlety limits mainstream detection.

Additionally, the nature of micro-aggressions has evolved to include tangential facets and characteristics historically linked to people of color such as socioeconomic status and culture Clark et. What occurs with the inclusion of tangential facets and characteristics to race is that the line of demarcation between entities that are intentional in their racial disrespect and insensitivity and entities that have no ill will are blurred. Therefore even honest reporting of an incident carries the risk of creating a negative persona for the victim, and that is what the selected newspaper articles exemplify.

A reasonable question can be raised when considering the potential influence of micro-aggressions in media: The simple answer is a resounding no. Rather, outlets must be more judicious in the information that they decide to present regarding any incident, let alone deaths involving unarmed Black males and law enforcement. The situations previously examined provide many teachable moments. What greater clarity was achieved by readers in knowing that Tony Robinson was previously convicted for armed robbery Brooks, ?

How does knowing that he lived in a housing project and had an extensive police record promote a better understanding of why Freddie Gray died Muskal, ? Relative to the facts of each incident, these pieces of information were peripheral at best. The only contributions they potentially provide are a triggering of negative misconceptions that will be unconsciously and unjustifiably attached to these individuals.

What is worse is that because this potential triggering is done in the immediacy following their deaths, when all information is novel, the perception created is very difficult to alter even in the face of more sound, debunking information. The growing number of fatal law enforcement interactions involving unarmed individuals, especially Black males, warrants greater cognizance of the images created by the media of the victims. Simply regurgitating all information provided, most of which comes from the same law enforcement agencies involved in the altercations and could possibly contain an agenda, is no longer acceptable.

True understanding of the power of racialized language, both overt and covert, should be the new standard of journalistic integrity. Gray died on April 19, stemming from neck and head injuries he suffered while in police custody. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. J Hum Behav Soc Environ. Author manuscript; available in PMC Jan 1. CalvinJohn Smiley a and David Fakunle b. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. See other articles in PMC that cite the published article.

Associated Data Supplementary Materials Appendix. Abstract The synonymy of Blackness with criminality is not a new phenomenon in America. Black males, thug, media, social media, police brutality, racial profiling. Literature Review Race is the most significant sociodemographic distinction in the United States. Jefferson uses observable data — presumably his own slaves — to come to his conclusions, stating: Additionally, according to David Pilgrim: Methods Content Analysis For this study, media coverage of the deaths of six unarmed Black males resulting from law enforcement interaction were investigated.

The incidents chosen for analysis are as follows, listed in chronological order from earliest to latest: Tony Robinson — 19 years old, died March 6, due to multiple gunshot wounds after altercation with Madison Police Department officer Matt Kenny in Madison, Wisconsin. Analytical Plan For each incident ten news articles, each published no more than 30 days after the victim's death, were selected. Autoethnography While this paper is an exercise in academic writing about current and social issues, for the authors — both of whom identify as Black males — the intersections of race, police brutality, and harassment are part of the lived experience which contextualize our social milieu.

Overall, Autoethnography is characterized by personal experience narratives, auto-observation, personal ethnography, lived experience, self-ethnography, reflexive ethnography, emotionalism, experiential texts, and autobiographical ethnography. Operational Definitions The sample of news articles fell under two operational classifications, both derived from the concept of racial micro-aggressions. Key Themes In addition to the two operational classifications, the portrayals of the victims fell under four major recurring themes: Behavior — the actions of the victim at the time of their death.

Also found were actions of the victim prior to their death that could be considered correlational to the interaction with law enforcement. This included but was not limited to past criminality. Appearance — the look of the victim at the time of their death.

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This included both their physical composition as well as the style of apparel worn. Location — the geographical area in which the victim's death occurred. Also found were references to the area in which the victim lived and references to the area s in which the victim frequented for social engagement.

Lifestyle — the culture s with which the victim was associated. Family usually provided friends, this information, or close associates of the victim. Eric Garner Eric Garner's representation in newspapers primarily featured micro-invalidations revolved around his physical composition. Specifically, Garner's health and size, as he was a particularly tall and large individual with a number of preexisting medical conditions, were among the first pieces of information introduced in many of the articles: Fox, Police suspected that Garner, who was African American, was selling untaxed cigarettes - a charge that he had faced numerous times before.

Michael Brown The representation of Michael Brown in the media immediately following his death surrounded issues of behavior and appearance. Within days, articles appeared that implicated Brown in a robbery moments before his death: Coscarelli, These reports became micro-insults and micro-invalidations to Brown's death as this report of him robbing a convenience store took precedent to the overall narrative of an unarmed young Black male being shot several times by a police officer. Duke, Shortly before his encounter with Officer Wilson, the police say he was caught on a security camera stealing a box of cigars, pushing the clerk of a convenience store into a display case.

Eligon, Very much married to the theme of the convenience store robbery, descriptions of his physical presence and lifestyle, including the coupling of rapping, has a negative connotation of both Brown's physical appearance and lifestyle.

Sanburn, While Wilson's description of Brown gave the impression of Brown being a colossal or more than human figure, it should be noted this imagery of Brown became another justification of the use of excessive and lethal force. Tamir Rice Tamir Rice's death was met with questions of lifestyle and behavior. Initially, the city of Cleveland, Ohio announced that Rice caused his own death: Tony Robinson The perception of Tony Robinson was overwhelming concentrated on the behavior that immediately preceded his death, prompting a number of micro-invalidations and micro-insults based on presumed criminality: Savidge, Anthony Robinson, 19, was killed about 6: Frankel, Robinson was shot after Officer Matt Kenny responded to calls about a man dodging cars in traffic who had allegedly battered another person, according to police officials.

O'Brien, One newspaper, a local outlet, highlighted Robinson's past behavior that included criminality: Freddie Gray Much of the narrative surrounding Freddie Gray focused on the behavior immediately prior to his arrest.