Reading Report: Chokehold: Policing Black Men

 

In this reading report from Paul Butler ‘Choke Hold’, it will expose the truth and all the details tied to police brutality in America 

It has a strong beginning as Butler starts off with names of victims of police brutlery, for example “Shot twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland within two seconds of seeing him in a public park.” (Butler, 2017). It’s a empowering start to his book with the victims racial injustice of America, he uses these names to inflict power on the issue as hearing about a twelve-year old (innocence) boy being shot is already an obvious remark to police brutlry on African-Americans. 

“If the police did these things to African Americans during Barack Obama’s presidency, what should we expect in the era of Donald Trump?“

Well since this book was published in 2017 a can say from 2022 it didn’t get any better. However it did result in a burst of understanding and truth as the cases of police vilonve against African-Americans increased and the case of George Fylod spread woldwide. Although it’s upsetting how blood had to be spilled of us to all really see the bloody truth of the justice system in America. 

Butler states an important case that “the crisis in law and order in the United States stems from police work itself rather than from individual cops.” This implies how the discriminating police vilonce is soaked into the justice system that cops who believe they aren’t racist are being racist without their acknowledgment and this I believe has gotten to the point where its normalised. This is why its so hard to stop police violence as it’s targeted to a race where they have never been at peace with “and nothing since slavery—not Jim Crow segregation, not forced convict labor, not lynching, not restrictive covenants in housing, not being shut out of New Deal programs like Social Security and the GI Bill, not massive resistance to school desegregation, not the ceaseless efforts to prevent African Americans as when they have felt under violent attack by the police”

Intersectionality & Police Brutality 

Furthermore, Bulter goes on to talk about intersectionality, meaning how not only their race is affected but also their gender and multiple identities all add up to the severity of the police violence against them. 

“The problem is that black male issues are likely to be prioritized, to the extent that any racial justice interventions are prioritised” (Butler, 2017)

Bulter states how police brultailty is targeted at African-American men, however as he uses the word “prioritised” is important because he tells us that being a black women doesn’t mean its any safer. Being a black women comes with its own set of problems, for example sexual assault and rape. 

He reminds us that gender is important to look at because its often forgotten especially when it comes to men. For example female hardships often revolve around their gender unlike men. However in this case the male gender does impact the hate crime, as crime has a higher rate of being the male gender. Overall, we cannot forget that genders, ethnicity and other identities all suffer in different ways based on their identities and one shouldn’t be prioritised more than the other. Police vilonce has a unfair target towards African-American men and women and this issue needs to be acknowledged for us to understands how to take further steps to end racial injustice. 

Chokehold & Black Men 

Years of constructing the perfect villian 

References; 

Butler, P. (2017) Chokehold: Policing Black Men. United States: New Press.