Recently while scrolling through Instagram, I noticed that a lot of my female friends were reposting information and graphics relating to a woman named Sarah Everard. After reading more into the story, it became clear to me that Sarah’s story was a story we had all been told as little girls. A cautionary tale to not walk alone at night, in Sarah’s case one that ended devastatingly at the hands of an alleged UK Police Officer. Sarah Everard was walking home alone in South London last week when she “went missing”. Mangled remains were found days later, eventually being identified as those of Everard. The prime suspect as of now is a South London cop who is currently being questioned on charges of kidnapping and murder. Following Sarah’s disappearance has been an uproar of social media support and countless women sharing their experiences and fears about going out at night. London police released a statement telling women to “try to not go out at night”, which unsurprisingly created even more of an uproar.

There lies the injustice, in the absolute ignorance of a male dominated organization to suggest that women do not go out at night. If, in this case, the cop is the one that abducted Sarah shouldn’t cops be the ones advised to not go out at night? The blatant victim blaming essentially insinuates that if Everard had not been walking at night she would still be here and shows a general lack of respect for women. It is not her fault, nor should any woman have to only leave the house during daylight. The righteousness of a man in a position of authority to dictate what a woman should and should not do, regardless of her status as a victim, is a blatant example of the systemic misogyny that exists within police systems.

Other women have come out publicly sharing stories of sexual assault, rape, and general misogyny they have experienced in the UK. A portion of these stories relate directly to police systems, categorizing misogynistic hate crimes as an institutional level issue. The systemic sexism that exists within the London Police specifically is radically destroying any trust women had in their local cops to keep them safe. In response to this notion, hate crimes driven by misogyny are now illegal in England and Wales and allegedly investigations into 6,000 cases have been reopened. This is definitively a step in the right direction, however, in practice there must be a shift in mentality before women can be free of the violence that is typically associated with men in power and deeply rooted sexism.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/institutional-misogyny-erodes-womens-trust-in-uk-police

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56427167https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-hate-crimes-misogyny-sarah-everard-b1818691.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/police-hate-crimes-misogyny-sarah-everard-b1818691.html

The immigrants that come over to the states and birth children, then have to return to their originating country without their child, lose more than the “freedom” of the United States. When reflecting back to coursework, we can relate this issue to the story “The Leavers” when Demming’s mother is sent back to China because of payments she is unable to make. This sort of issue comes into effect more than the average eye sees daily. An example of complications of children of immigrants that I vividly remember is from when President Donald J. Trump was just getting settled into his office after the 2016 inauguration. In this situation, it was narrated to me that the people from outside of the border where attempting to illegally pass over; in turn, this resulted those that had children to lose custody and were continued back over the country law. By law, this was handled accordingly due to their stepping over the border line and placing them into United States territory. However, ethically or empathetically speaking, it does not seem right to send their parents back over, but keep their children on United States soil. Emotionally and psychologically speaking, however, this is detrimental to both the parents and children.

Let me show the numbers:

According to AdoptUSKids, the United States alone has well over 400,00 foster youth (around 450,000). Now, hypothetically speaking, imagine that being half that number of foster parents, maybe even a fourth of it. that rounds to 5 children per household. Next, factor in those parents having children of their own, with the average maximum number of children ranging from 3-5, that brings the number with homes lower to about homes for 300,000. Then, factor is the parents without their own children having a cap number of children at a time being 2. There are now homes for 275,000 children, leaving the other 175,000 on the streets, in an orphanage, or dying.

This is a MAJOR issue. I find it to be considered a systemic injustice to also keep their children here solely because they are born in the United States but their family is being sent elsewhere while the children, not common with our world, are stuck here by themselves.

Below lists articles that I find are important to understand the backbone of this Showcase.

Foster Youth Research:

https://www.google.com/search?q=number+of+foster+parents+in+the+us&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS831US831&oq=number+of+foster+&aqs=chrome.2.69i59j69i57j0l2j0i20i263j0l2j0i390l2.5735j1j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Family Separation at the Border:

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border

I was talking to an African American friend of mine last week while we were both scrolling through the popular app “TikTok”. He came across a video where a white man was walking around a couple of police officers and teasing them. He turned around to me and said, “Wow, that dude is lucky he is white, I doubt they would let that action slide if he was a black dude.” Little did he know I had also seen the video on my feed a couple hours earlier. I told him to check the comments because I knew what he would find, and he was greeted with many other people commenting almost the identical sentence he had just said. This was one of those moments where it was absolutely prevalent, and sad, how many African American men and women go every day fearing their own police force.

There is a known systemic injustice against African American citizens in the United States where the police force in certain areas have a racist bias. To me, the existence of this systemic injustice was never as clear as when you compare the Black Lives Matter protests to the recent storming of the capitol building in early January of this year. The police were brutal when it came to the BLM peaceful protests and marches. There was countless acts of police brutality and violence used against the African Americans protesting their rights after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, another example of this systemic injustice. Then, not long after, a bunch of white supremacists, some consider terrorists, stormed the nation’s capital building. There was barely any force to try and stop them even though this was not even a form of peaceful protest, and more like an act of terrorism. Just witnessing how different these two events were handled, seemingly just because of the color of the people’s skin, is truly horrifying to see, and instills even more fear into those African Americans who are already fearful to even be near a police officer.

BLM Protest vs. Capitol Riot: Comparing Police Response

This is clearly a form of systemic injustice because of the number of times acts like this have been witnessed. I feel like this is such a difficult injustice to be righted since racism is so deep rooted, but a good start would be for police to have more consequence if it is found that they unjustly treated an African American citizen worse than the situation required. The usage of body cameras on officers is also a good step in the right direction. I think the best way to relate this topic to class is with Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of the the “One” vs the “Other”. In this case, the group of people clearly being treated as the “other” in our society, according to the situations being discussed, are people of African American decent. Although sad, like I said, it is not a new concept in the United States. It is unfair and cruel to single out a group of people like this and no one, especially an entire group of people, should have to deal with such a fear and issue in their society. Overall, this is just one of the many examples of deep-rooted systemic injustices in our country.

For my Systemic Injustice showcase I chose an example of racial discrimination due to policies that were incorporated in the 1950’s that were still in effect until this event. Darrell Semien (picture below) was a black police officer in Louisiana that passed away due to cancer. His wife, Karla, attempted to have him buried at a local cemetery in which they denied her. According to the cemetery’s policy, it stated that only white people were able to purchase plots and be buried there. After this incident went viral on the social media, many demanded justices for this mistreatment. When questioned about the policy they claimed that they simply forgot that it was in there since it was made so long ago. The only reason the policy does not exist anymore is due to the media attention and exposure that it received so this brings to question how many other families were denied because of this and just how many other policies are there that still exist that are discriminatory.

News article covering the story (includes video):

https://www.klfy.com/louisiana/allen-parish-family-denied-burial-because-of-skin-color-people-need-to-know-its-just-not-right/

Unfortunately, many of these policies that were created during the period of slavery and afterwards where discrimination was a big issue still exist and go unnoticed. The fact that policies like these can exist that have such an effect against these unfortunate citizens shows that discrimination is still an issue and there has not been a proper reform. Especially since Louisiana was a major southern state that was a massive supporter of slavery and was a main enforcer of the Jim Crow laws, these discriminatory policies are difficult to remove due to lingering resentments among the population. Recently many other examples of discriminatory actions have been receiving attention on social media which results in public out roar and backlash against it. I believe when the backlash from the public causes there to be change and reforms whatever wrong was committed, it can be beneficial for many other ‘hidden’ policies and rules to be removed. I believe this story ties with the readings during week 4. John Lewis’ March was a good example of discriminatory actions and how those injustices affect people.

An example of systemic injustice that I read about in the news was the federal execution of Brandon Bernard. Mr. Bernard was sentenced to death in 1999 for his part in a carjacking and the murders of a couple. In 2018, evidence was discovered by the police that proved he did not commit the murders, however he did burn the bodies, an attempt to cover up the crime (McCullough, J). After this evidence was presented to the courts, multiple jurors changed their mind about his death sentence (McCullough, J). Leading up to his execution, thousands of people called, emailed, and tweeted support for the Supreme Court and former President Trump to reverse the decision of Mr. Bernard’s execution. Here is a twitter thread that educated and raised awareness to tens of thousands of people on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wilsonality/status/1336344699561521153?s=12

Mr. Bernard was executed on December 10th, 2020. Bernard’s attorney, Robert C. Owen, released a statement after his death and called for systemic change; this statement can be found from this tweet https://twitter.com/mikebalsamo1/status/1337211256856596480?s=12.

His death was an example of how the death penalty disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. The United States is among a list of countries that uses the death penalty to punish the poor and minorities. People who are poor have a more difficult time affording a good lawyer, making it more likely that they will be receive a death sentence (Penal Reform International). Minorities have endured this systemic injustice for many, many years. In the year 2000, 18 prisoners were to be federally executed; of the 18 prisoners, 16 of them were either Asian, Hispanic, or African American (ACLU). This is systemic because both minorities and the poor are not receiving as fair of a sentence as White people or people with a higher SES. This systemic injustice can relate to what we learned in class about the Master and the Slave. In this situation, the Judicial/Prison System is the master and the minorities, and the poor are the slaves. To change this wrong to be righted, we as a society need to demand prison reform and aim to abolish for-profit private prisons. We also need to demand fair trials for everyone regardless of a person’s gender(s), sexuality, race, and ethnicity.

Citations:
ACLU. (n.d.). Race and the death penalty. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://www.aclu.org/other/race-and-death-penalty

McCullough, J. (2020, December 10). In rush of FEDERAL executions, Brandon Bernard and ALFRED Bourgeois were put to death for Texas murders. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/10/brandon-bernard-alfred-bourgeois-executions/

Penal Reform International. (2015, November 19). The death penalty: Myths & realities. Retrieved February 07, 2021, from https://www.penalreform.org/resource/the-death-penalty-myths-realities/

Krystal Webb

An example of systemic injustice that I have been noticing a lot in the news in the last year is how so many people are randomly attacking Asian and Asian American people on the street. It started when we first heard about the Corona virus and when people in the United States started getting infected with the virus. The first terrible video that I saw was a man attaching an elderly Asian man on the train or bus and no one stopped him. There are so many other videos and cases similar to that. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/asian-attack-san-francisco-hate-crime-b1823163.html

Former president of the united states called the corona virus the “kung-flue”. Him saying that was racist because he took a form of fighting that originated in Asia and turned into a phrase to put blame and mock Asian people. He put a target on them. Because so many people look up and follow him blindly, it gave other people a reason to think that all Asian people are to blame for the virus. When a leader is openly racist towards a group of people, they make a safe environment for others to be openly racist as well. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/20/trump-covid-19-kung-flu-racist-language

There are a lot of stereotypes that people associated with Asians and Asian American people. The model minority is a stereotype that we talked about in class while reading The Leavers. Many people use it as a way to believe that all Asian and Asian American people as really smart and hardworking people, or very attractive people. It is saying that they are the ideal type of minority that people want to have in a country because they are successful. It puts a lot of pressure on people, and it is wrong to classify them as perfect.  Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, there has been about 3,800 documented hate crimes against Asian and Asian American people. I cannot imagine how high the number of attacks that do not get reported. In the shooting that happened on March 16 that six of the eight of the people that were wrongfully murder where Asia American many people were upset how the media refereed to them. They acknowledge the victims as “Asian descent”. By acknowledging them that way it makes the victims out to be immigrants. The victims were not immigrants, but they should have been acknowledged as Asian Americans according to Two stereotypes that diminish the humanity of the Atlanta shooting victims – and all Asian Americans. Many media sources stereotyped them as a model minority with out even realizing it.

There are many cases with Asian people in America are being assaulted randomly. The only reason people are assaulting them is because they are Asian and no other reason. They are considered hate crimes because it is a hate crime to attack and harm a group of people based on their race. Asian people are being blamed for something that they have no control over. People are upset because of the world pandemic and take their anger out on Asian people. Asian and Asian American people are being used as a scapegoat for this virus that is effect so many people around the world. People are taking their anger out on a whole group of people and believe that they are responsible for something that is out of their control. It is so bad that some people have to escort elderly Asian people so that they can feel safe on the streets doing simple things.

There have been many people protesting to the Asian hate to bring awareness to others that at this time Asian people are in danger just because they are Asian and it wrong. For things to change, there needs to be a harsh punishment for anyone who is caught assaulting Asian people like time in jail and a fine. People need to understand that what is happening is not necessarily any single person’s fault and blaming one race fixes nothing at all. People are protesting and I believe that will change things. Protesting brings light to the hate so that other people can know that terrible things are happening. It also encourages other people to speak out against the hate. People are also stepping up in helping Asian American people by helping them do their errors and walking with them so they can feel safe. If people want this virus to change, people need to wear mask, not have big parties and also follow the rules to protect themselves. Attacking and blaming Asian people is racist and no one should have to live in fear. If you see something orstem a person being attacked because of their race, do not just watch what is happening; stand up and do something to put an end to it.

Sources

Photo:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/reports-of-anti-asian-hate-crimes-are-surging-in-canada-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-1.5351481

videos:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/20/trump-covid-19-kung-flu-racist-language

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/asian-attack-san-francisco-hate-crime-b1823163.html

Information:

https://theconversation.com/two-stereotypes-that-diminish-the-humanity-of-the-atlanta-shooting-victims-and-all-asian-americans-157762

The systemic injustice that I want to share with you is about social indifferences towards the disabled in China. While I am writing this post, an image popped up in my mind where there is a bunch of Mobikes, a bike rental business like Chinese version of Lime, occupying the special lane for the disabled. Additionally, I found an article that organizes several similar cases in one city, which means that situations like this are everywhere, not just one or two scenarios. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1667011387383774681&wfr=spider&for=pc

I started looking around for more information and personal stories about how disabled people felt in today’s culture. Through an article(link below), I discovered that, based on their own scenarios, some of them are still nervous and unable to engage in outdoor events. The devastation and occupation of the disabled special lane was just the tip of the iceberg of inequality they suffer on a daily basis. The majority of them have been exposed to direct or unintentional discrimination, abuse, victimization, and a failure to seek fair accommodations. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/disability-discrimination

People occupy the special services available for the disabled, in my opinion, because they do not believe it would have an effect on the disabled, who are a minor group of people. The awareness of respecting the disabled is clearly not sufficient in China right now. For example, we have special disabled toilets in the public sector, but I always see people feeling free to use them because the other normal slots are full, and we seldom see disabled people using them. In the case of the special lane occupation, the person who placed the bike in the lane said he had no idea there was a disabled person walking by because he had never seen a disabled person use that lane before. What I’m trying to imply is that those of us who display ignorance and disrespect to the disabled do so unintentionally because we don’t realize what we’re doing is causing these issues. It’s basically that they don’t take the special services offered for the disabled seriously. I believe we must learn to listen to and respect the voices of the disabled.

Over the course of the past couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to highlight several injustices that are embedded in the United States’ legal system. These injustices have had an astoundingly negative impact on society as a whole, and on minorities in particular. Out of the injustices that I have had the chance to go into detail about. One that has stood out to me due to its extremely negative effects on the African-American and Latino communities is the current United States’ prison system. Furthermore, I believe that this injustice can be related to the Master-Slave Dialectic that we have talked about in class over the course of the semester.

One of the main issues with the current prison system is how the majority of incarcerated people are those who live in lower income neighborhoods and have less access to resources. Furthermore, the majority of people who are targeted and eventually jailed happen to be minorities. This is even more of an issue when you realize how small of a percentage these people make up in terms of the general population of the country and world, compared to what percentage of the prison population they make up. An example of this is African-Americans. According to the NAACP Black people account for less than 15% of the U.S. population but account for almost 35% of the prison population. To make matters worse, according to the Washington Post the United States accounts for less than 5% of the entire world’s population, but accounts for over 20% of the world’s prison population. The United States was supposedly built on the principle of freedom, but somehow manages to lock up so many of its citizens without  providing them with any form of rehabilitation.

With that being said, I also believe that this injustice is applicable to the Master-Slave Dialectic. This concept, which was developed by George Hegel, revolves around the principle that the Master dictates what the Slave sees and perceives to be true. Furthermore, this concept is prevalent in terms of the current U.S. System because of the government, in this case the Master dictates what the Slave, in this case minorities living in poorer communities, perceives to be true by controlling what resources and information they have access to. By controlling and limiting the resources these people are exposed to, they are funneling the people in these communities straight from high school into prisons, which is very unfortunate. People in these communities need access to the same resources and opportunities as everyone else and I feel like this can hopefully restructure the prison system. 

Media:

Works Cited 

Lee, Michelle. “Does the United States Really Have 5 Percent of the World’s Population and One Quarter of the World’s Prisoners?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 15 Aug. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/30/does-the-united-states-really-have-five-percent-of-worlds-population-and-one-quarter-of-the-worlds-prisoners/. 

“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP, 10 July 2020, www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/. 

With Covid-19 cases still at an all-time high, Asian Americans have experienced the highest rate of hate related crimes. In Portland, Oregon alone, within the last week of January, “At least 13 businesses had rocks thrown through their windows or were otherwise targeted.” (Williams). So much hate has been directed towards Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic, and yet not a lot of coverage on the news. Former president Donald Trump expressed a lot of racism towards Asians since the start of the pandemic. One incident that struck out the most was when he kept on referring to the Covid-19 virus as the “Wu Tang Virus”. Many of his supporters gained confidence due to this and thought that it was acceptable to outcast Asian Americans. They had ammunition from a higher ranking member of the government. In an article published by the New York Times, Former President Donal Trump defends using the racist term, “It’s not racist at all… It come’s from China, that’s why”(Katie, et al). Political officials can be one of the main reasons for systemic injustice. They have a great influence on their supporters, and whatever they say can be taken very seriously. Their words can fuel the fire of racism in the world.

Yet this racism still has yet to stop. A couple of weeks ago, another tragic and horrific shooting occurred in Atlanta. Eight innocent lives were lost due to this hatred. Robert Long was charged with eight counts of murder. He targeted three suburban spa’s, in which he was a customer at two. The fact that some of the police officers were defending his act of terror and stating that he had a “bad day”. There is no excuse to what he did, he clearly targeted those spas because majority of the people that worked there were Asian.

Relating this to class content, I think of Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of the the “One” vs the “Other”. In this case, Asian Americans are being outcasted for being the “Other” based solely on the their ethnicity. No one should have to feel a sense of exclusion from their society just because they are different. The hate directed towards Asian Americans is affecting their population drastically. Old and young Asian Americans are being targeted, and some even losing their lives. The violence needs to stop, and we are one step closer to change. Immediately after the Inauguration Day, President Joe Biden signed an executive order condemning anti-Asian discrimination (Fang). The executive order signed gives us hope that this hatred can all go away. No group of race deserves to be singled out due to something that isn’t even their fault.

-Samar Suleiman

Sources:

Kale Williams. “Asian-Owned Businesses Hit in More than a Dozen Acts of Vandalism in Portland’s Jade District.” Oregonlive, 11 Feb. 2021, www.oregonlive.com/crime/2021/02/asian-owned-businesses-hit-in-more-than-a-dozen-acts-of-andalism-in-portlands-jade-district.html.

Fang, Marina. “Joe Biden Signs Executive Order Condemning Anti-Asian Racism Related To COVID-19.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 26 Jan. 2021, www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-executive-order-anti-asian-racism-covid-19_n_600f30e0c5b600a279622501

Rogers, Katie, et al. “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html.