Discrimination in the U.S.

What, if any, changes have occurred in the nation's police departments 21 years after the Rodney King beating? To answer this question, this study examined findings provided by the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP). An additional goal of this study was to examine how the public generally perceive police and how race and racism shape this discourse. To answer this secondary question, we examined narratives provided by 36 contributors to the NPMSRP site. The following two questions were foundational to this study: (1) What do findings from the NPMSRP suggest about the rate of police brutality in America? (2) How do individuals perceive the police department, and what implications do these perceptions hold for Black men in America? In general, fatalities at the hands of police are higher than they are for the general public. Grounded theory analysis of the data revealed that individuals perceive members of law enforcement in the following ways: (a) contempt for law enforcement, (b) suspicion of law enforcement, (c) law enforcement as agents of brutality, and (d) respect for law enforcement. Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each of the aforementioned themes.

This paper considers the role of video footage in recent high-profile cases of anti-black police brutality in the United States. I illuminate the limits of the counter-surveillance impetus to film the police by contextualizing this strain of social media utopianism within the larger history of what I call "racialization as a way of seeing." Racialization as a way of seeing is a historical formation that brings together the history of policing, the development of visual epistemologies, and the history of the naturalization of the criminality of blackness. I then track how the optimism of the counter-surveillance discourse has been recuperated by the state into consent for police worn cameras-reforms which threaten to strengthen a system built on structural racism, rather than ameliorate its injustices. I conclude by suggesting an emergent model for how video evidence may be paradoxically working to relegitimize the police and the state in the newest era of "21st century policing."

Equal Pay and Pay Transparency Protections. U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, April 2016, www.dol.gov/equalpay/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2017.

Karaim, Reed. "Race and Education: Are U.S. schools becoming resegregated?" CQ Researcher, 5 Sept. 2014, pp. 721-44, accessed 26 Oct. 2016, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2014090500

“Moyers & Company: Incarceration Nation.” Films Media Group, 2013, fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=97865&xtid=56315. Accessed 1 Nov. 2017.

In 2011, the Obama Administration initiated a Countering Violent Extremism program (CVE) purportedly aimed at tackling the underlying causes that may contribute to terrorism domestically and abroad.2 According to the White House, "CVE efforts address the root causes of extremism through community engagement"3 and [t]he underlying premise of the approach to countering violent extremism in the United States is that (1) communities provide the solution to violent extremism; and (2) CVE efforts are best pursued at the local level, tailored to local dynamics, where local officials continue to build relationships within their communities through established community policing and community outreach mechanisms.4 In January 2017, the Trump Administration announced that it would change the name of the program to "Countering Islamic Extremism" to reflect his Administration's intentions to focus exclusively on terrorism committed by individuals claiming to be Muslim, while excluding terrorism committed by others including white supremacists.5 Notwithstanding the outcry surrounding the Trump Administration's renaming of the program by civil rights advocates, CVE has always been focused on Muslim communities in the United States. [...]this Article addresses four fundamental flaws with CVE: 1) CVE programs securitize Muslim communities and validate terrorists' narratives that America is at war with Islam; 2) CVE programs are unnecessary to prevent domestic terrorism; 3) CVE programs are a waste of government resources; and 4) government funds for community development and resilience should be funded and administered by social service agencies without law enforcement control. CVE programs put the civil liberties of innocent Americans at risk,...