History edited 3

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How white supremacy shaped policing in the 19th century
White supremacy ushered in implicit biasness and systemic structural imbalance amongst
citizens in the 19th century. The absolute biasness has seen tensions arising between the black
community and the police. Due to the unjust and selective treatment of the black community,
they have formed movements agitating for equality. White supremacy thrived because of its
institutionalization. Most whites from the political class were white supremacists who renounced
racism.
American policing had its origins in slave guards, troops composed of the whites who
would volunteer for the sake of humiliating the blacks. The white supremacists within the slave
patrols would be authorized and instructed to employ vigilante strategies to implement laws for
the enslaved Black people. The whites ensured the enslaved Black people adhered to their
demands, and in cases, they would violate the laws and be stroked with painful punishment to
force conformity.
Through hook and crook, the slave vigilante patrol teams would storm different
homesteads regardless of their races or their ethnicity with an ulterior motive of fetching out
those believed to have escaped slavery. With the evolution from the vigilante to the police
system, police were white males, the aspect of discrimination and biasness was already
preeminent.
The basis on which policing system is formed is through industrialization, slavery, and
colonialism—policing surfaces when a gap of conflict in the three forms of exploitations is
detected. When a crisis emerges in either slavery or colonialism, there is the need for social
control, which might exceed its intent. There is no doubt; white supremacy is built to last within
the American policing system.
American policing through colonialism had one of its obligations of displacing Native
Americans and Spanish to create a room and space for white settlement. People of color had
privileges and law immunity when the dispensation of justice. Even though they were protected
under the pretext of whiteness, they committed more injustices worth prosecuting than other
races.
During the reconstruction era, blacks were outlawed from several activities, including
voting, negotiating for their labor contracts, or social rights. White supremacy limited blacks
from nearly if not most inherent rights except for white landowners. It was abuse and misuse of
blacks. White imperialists did this injustice in their favor. Any black who resisted their rule
would be subjected to humiliation or arrest.
The emergence of policing clouded justifications of the white supremacists’ ills
committed to the blacks. (Delgado, ‘‘Can free expression remedy systemic social ill”)American
policing served to maintain blacks in lesser roles to continue exploiting them through labor and
skills and get to work for free for the rich whites. The American criminal justice system would
charge the whites for expressing themselves deservedly. The underclass was looked at as lesser
humans compared to the white imperialists.
Abolition of slavery saw the blacks having space at the mercy of the white supremacists.
They would be arrested and criminalized at the invocation of civil rights. Black’s offenses were
slight but made to appear grievous, constituting capital punishment. The blacks hardly had or
accessed their freedom as other races. Blacks were whites’ subordinates. (Franke, ”the
domesticated liberty”)
Whenever the American system of policing would conduct their random patrols or
employ their mechanisms of ensuring zero crimes in the country, they would narrow on the black
communities. They would explicitly demarcate areas blacks dwelled in and declare them crime
hotspots. Most unlicensed and club operations were strategically positioned in areas blacks
resided.
Even though they had their bases in the black communities, whites ran them. But still,
they would hide under the dominance of the black community residing there as an escape. The
black dominance would give them a reason for implicit biasness.it would label the region’s hot
zones for crimes due to the businesses that are run within the location which surrounds the black
communities. (Haller,” organized crime in urban society”)
When NAACP was founded, it was precisely interested in tracking and analyzing data on
execution. It did not act to its specification. Instead, it intensified police violence. Through
inquiries and investigations of the Blue Ribbon Commission, they found out that when the police
were granted a chance to protect the blacks from mobbing, they either fled without rescuing or
aided in execution instead of acting to their duty ethics. (Carle, ‘’A social movement history of
Title VII Disparate Impact analysis’’.)
Despite the efforts by different commissions to look into the police conduct, the findings
were met with repulsion and disgust from American policing. Some reports were dropped and
never materialized. For instance, the Blue Ribbon Commission report was largely bundled out
and thwarted as inconsistent and inconclusive. They were not hiding being identified with such
social ills. They arrested the innocent blacks and charged them unlawfully or subjected them to
forceful punishments.
The Injustices committed to the indigenous involved police either directly or indirectly.
In the cases of lynching, the white police aided in the executions and killings of the blacks. They
also arrested the black protestors who would condemn in strongest terms the actions of the police
towards violence and extrajudicial killings. The state also fortified and gave them cover from
grilling. The white supremacists were quiet and would witness the police deny their rights.
If a policy is publicly involved in killing or gunning down a black, it will end without a
say. The police will be under amour and protection by the government. The bodies responsible
will do close to nothing to prosecute the police officer for the offense charges of murder. White
supremacists bedeviled the police system, and the policing system would witness no change with
such a mentality of glorifying people of color.
There has existed a historical feud between the police and the black communities that
might not end soon, judging on historical injustices. The lack of actors and policymakers in
critical conditions which beckons clarity has also contributed to the purveyance of white
supremacists. There existed impending danger on the failure of state and senior police officials to
address the conflict of the white supremacists’ police officers and the black communities.
Efforts by the federal government to monitor the conduct of the police officers have been
hugely insufficient, and it gave room for the white supremacists to continue with their businesses
of implicit biases. The white supremacists profiled the black communities, and as much as they
hid their racial composition, they meted injustices on the blacks undeservedly.
In the 19th century, on the evolution of the policing system, the police were tasked with
specific orders which would exhibit white supremacy, discrimination, and all other ills that
bedevil American policing. There were to respond to disorders more than crimes committed by
different persons. They had profiled the indigenous people. They were people not equal, for that
reason lesser to them and deserved inhumane treatment under the pretext of justice dispensation.
Police violence against defenseless persons such as immigrants, the poor, and African
Americans was common during the 19th century. The police were recruited to these unjustifiable
actions as they knew they had state protection and would be shelved from any prosecution if the
wheels of justice decided to roll. Blacks who broke laws would severely be punished, besides
humiliation worth degrading human dignity. (Hawkins, ”a history of race and social control in
America’’)
References
Carle, S. D. (2011). A social movement history of Title VII Disparate Impact analysis. Fla. L.
Rev., 63, 251
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (1991). Images of the outsider in American law and culture: Can
free expression remedy systemic social ills. Cornell L. Rev., 77, 1258.
Franke, K. M. (2004). The domesticated liberty of Lawrence v. Texas. Colum. L. Rev., 104,
1399.
Haller, M. H. (1971). Organized crime in urban society: Chicago in the twentieth century.
Journal of Social History, 210-234.
Hawkins, H., & Thomas, R. (2013). White policing of black populations: A history of race and
social control in America. Out of order, 65-86
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