Stacey Praston in her contribution to the Washington Post reports that black children, especially teenagers, are not treated equally in American society and are seen as threats to white lives. Her article In America, black children don’t get to be children pin points events in history when black teenagers have been assaulted or even killed because of the impregnated biases of their white counterparts.
The recent event at Ferguson, where a white officer gun shot an unarmed black teenager, is compared to other cases that happened in the 19th-century when America’s society was even more racist than what it is today. It was also compared to the 2013 trial in which a man named Zimmerman was acquitted with the murder of Martin, a 17 year old black teenager.
Determining whether the victims were teenagers or grown-up adults, not determining the innocence or guilt of the officers, was the main theme in all these trials. To the gunned officers, the aspect of the young victims made them pull the trigger in these threatening situations. Praston, however, argues that the officers’ decisions were biased by seeing all black people, whether child or adult, as “irresponsible, uncivil, criminal, and innately inferior.”
This is in part thanks to many medical publications made at the turn-of-the-century which featured how black children’s bodies develop differently from white children. According to the researchers, “the black fetus had a smaller brain, a wider nose, thicker lips, and ‘simian’ hands and feet.” Immediately, these features put all black kids in an inferior – monstrous and less than human – state. Features and ideas that still resonate today.
This description is really good. I wish you had of kept the frame of what the article or author does in the last paragraph. It almost seems like you’re adding your own argument there, but otherwise good.