Atta Tariq Essay-1

Atta Tariq

Professor Monroe

English 92

July 17, 2020

          Essay- Police brutality  

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish The Police, written by Mairame Kaba opened my eyes on the topic of police brutality and racism even more. It made me realize that I am not the only one who thinks the same as her or had the same ideas in their mind as she did.  In the article the author is trying to point out to us the facts about the police and police brutality. She is trying to open our eyes and not blind us by thinking that the police are here for our safety. She states the facts about what recently has taken place the death of George Floyd. “Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300 MM” but what is the point of all this money when they are not using it on the right things. She also mentions that, “But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century.” I agree absolutely 100% with what Mariame Kaba states in this article because she has been talking about things that have not been said. The most important thing to notice in this article, something that I found very interesting and amusing was when she said “Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people.” This really caught my attention because it is true, some police officers abuse their “power” and use it in the wrong. Protest did work somewhat, but I believe that we should take more action on police brutality and racism. Racism is still a major issue, just because slavery has ended does not mean that racism has ended. Racially profiling humans is a major issue in todays’ society and actions should be taken against it. The government needs to bring awareness on this topic. 

I have always been told that if something goes wrong or we are in trouble we should contact the police. Police are for our safety and are supposed to protect us but lately, it seems like we are safer without the police and the last people we should contact if we are in need of help is the police department. I did not know that me living in America I would still have to face “racial profiling” especially in this generation. I will share a personal incident that has happened with my family and I  recently. This incident took place four months ago when we were coming back to New York City from Pakistan. There was a white family next to us on the immigration line. While they were already in line for immigration, the officer was staring at us like we did something wrong. He was done with the other white  family in 5 minutes and called us. They took all of our passports and started going through our passports and whispering it was something that none of us ever witnessed before.. He almost took 25 to 30 minutes looking at our faces and matching the passport photos, then he started asking questions, such as: when you went to Pakistan? Why did you go there? How long did you stay there? all  these random questions, which I think were not important. They had our tickets and could check for themselves but we still co operated with them, after that  he started asking where we live in New York, which I also think was not necessary and he almost took an hour or more on us even though there was long line. My name has “Muhammad” in it, I guess that got them to become suspicious they took me into the interrigartion room and searched and did a background check just to find nothing on me but that I am a college student who just went to Pakistan to visit his family. I couldn’t say anything because I was terrified and my parents always taught me to never talk back to the American police, do nothing but what is said and co-operate with them. This incident has really changed my thinking of how racism has still not come to an end no matter what year we are living in. I will still be looked at by the eyes of a suspicious cop thinking I maybe  a terrorist because of having “Muhammad” in my name. 

Another example of police brutality and racial profiling is when the George Floyd incident took place. An innocent black man’s life was taken by a white police officer thinking that Flyod had a fake check. The white cop put his on Floyds neck which caused him to choke and eventually caused him to die. Riots and protests had started because of this which caused the entire nation to question every police officer. There was also a viral video on social media on a black man who is actually a FBI agent being arrested. In the video the two white police officers are arresting the black FBI agent thinking he is the guy who they are looking for. Throughout the arrest he is questioning the police “you are assuming someone I am not” and kept telling them to look into his wallet and they’d know who he is and when they finally saw the identity card he was immediately released and no handcuffs on him. Throughout the entire video the man is telling people and the two white police officers that he is being racially profiled but they didn’t listen to him until they saw his ID card. 

I believe Racism still exists in different ways. However, some people say cops or other officers are just doing their job and there’s no racism. They mostly say “black people” do wrong stuff and get caught. Well, we all know it exists but sometimes is brushed off in a joke. We all need to know Humanity is the biggest religion. It is sad that we are still stuck on racism and judging others based on their looks and ethnicity. Every person has the right to freedom. All over social media, we saw videos where cops harass black people just because of their color which is called racially profiling. 

        Racism still exists but in different ways, everywhere. We really need to stop judging each other by their race or color. Reading the article on police brutality was really an eye opener for me personally because the author stated facts and talked about things that were not being said by the media. Personal experiences and experiences that have happened with other people which were shown through videos on instagram, twitter and youtube are evidence about the fact that police brutality exists and it should be stopped. Police are using their power in the wrong and are causing some of the good police officers to be looked up as a bad one too. Not all cops are bad but after all that has happened it makes it hard to give any cop the benefit of the doubt. The government needs to take better action against this topic. Police if for our safety and to protect us not to harm us and be afraid of them.