Prompt:
Read Chapters VI-VII (pages 80-162) using your evidence-interpretation notetaker📷, identifying strong lines and properly citing them (author's last name page number).
Select two situations from VI and/or one situation from VI and all of section VII on which to focus. Research and including any references in the text she is making (e.g., Hurricane Katrina, Rodney King, Trayvon Martin), vocabulary (e.g., body politic), learning about the art in the chapter (images listed on Page 163), and any associated material/references.
In 2 paragraphs or more, share: what drew you to these sections, one or more of the strong lines you selected (and why you selected it/them),what you learned from your research (citing sources and page numbers), what you understand about the text, and how you can connect it to other course readings (including the first section of the text) and current events as well as, if applicable, your own life. one or more questions you have.
A situation from section (VI) that really stands out to me is Stop-and-Frisk. I’ve heard of this term before, however, I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant or if it was legal. According to Beverly Rice, author of “When Can the Police Stop and Frisk You on the Street?”, stop-and-frisk (otherwise known as a terry stop) is when police stop you on the street and pat you down for anything illegal as long as they have “suspicion”. This was made legal when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of it during the 1968 case Terry v. Ohio. When reading many reports it is apparent that many police officers abuse this power, targeting many minorities who are just trying to go about their day. Looking at what the speaker described in this section, the line “and you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitting the description” (Rankine 105) is repeated four times, enforcing this explanation that just because the speaker is black that he is being wrongfully targeted. It represents this idea that an officer’s preference is to suspect and accuse every black male because of their “similar” appearances, which is completely immoral. When put in the situation of the speaker you can’t really do anything but follow the orders because anything could be used against you. It's an officer’s word against yours, meaning you are screwed if the officer accuses you of doing anything you didn't. I felt the line “yes officer rolled around my tongue, which grew out of a bell that could never ring because its emergency was a tolling I was meant to swallow” (Rankin 105), which really represented this feeling of suppression many people face when in this situation. This information sparked a question, how many minorities are terry stopped and how often does it end in violence? According to Rose Lenehan, author of “What "Stop-and-Frisk" Really Means: Discrimination & Use of Force”, police data from 2011 in New York City showed that police made 685,724 stops, which is almost 2,000 stops per day. From those same numbers, the police stopped Black and Latino people 574,483 times that year. Even though these are statistics from eight years ago, it's really eye-opening to see how often this happens in one place. I wonder how bad this is in other major cities such as Atlanta and Los Angeles?
Another situation from section (VI) that really stood out to me was the Jena Six. Before reading this about this, I had no idea who the Jena Six were. I actually thought Jena Six was the name of a person. After watching a news report made a year after the incident from Democracynow.org, I’ve learned what actually occurred in the town of Jena. Due to a series of racist events, which the white residents put off as harmless pranks, a small fight happened between a white teenager and six black students. The white teenager only suffered a mild concussion and minor bruising. The six students, on the other hand, were charged with battery and attempted second-degree murder, which left them facing charges that would serve between twenty-two to one hundred years in jail. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this charge is bullshit. To show how ridiculous this town is towards black people, in October of that year a white student pulled a gun on a group of black students. The black students managed to take the gun away and then reported the incident to the police. The black students ended up being charged with assault and robbery of the gun. The line “...the fists the feet criminalized already are weapons already exploding the landscape and then the litigious hitting back is life imprisoned" (Rankine 101) represents that the point of this section is to not focus on the beating itself but the harsh response of it. The noose incidents that built up to this event were ignored and white residents weren't looking at the larger societal issues. This ties into other previous texts, showing that racism is still within our society and if we try to ignore the problem then we are only making it worse.
Works Cited
“The Case of the Jena Six: Black High School Students Charged with Attempted Murder for Schoolyard Fight After Nooses Are Hung from Tree.” Democracy Now!, www.democracynow.org/2007/7/10/the_case_of_the_jena_six.
Lenehan, Rose. “What 'Stop-and-Frisk' Really Means.” What 'Stop-and-Frisk' Really Means | Prison Policy Initiative, www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/stopandfrisk.html.
“When Can the Police Stop and Frisk You on the Street?” Legalzoom.com, 22 Aug. 2014, www.legalzoom.com/articles/when-can-the-police-stop-and-frisk-you-on-the-street.
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