Book Review
Introduction
Police officers in Chicago have, for a long time, killed, abused, and tortured black individuals in Chicago. A grim picture of the constant violence is painted from the recent reports of investigations of complaints of misconduct against the city’s law enforcers. The Chicago Police Department has, over the past decade, gained a bad reputation due to increased reports about police brutality and targeted arrests against minority groups. One notable example Laquan McDonald’s case, a teenager who was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer back in 2014 (Smith, 2019). This victim’s case is one of the many that continue to be witnessed despite numerous efforts to mitigate racial profiling and police brutality. Simon Balto, in his book, Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, highlights the issue of racial discrimination within the police force. The author goes to great lengths to discuss some of the injustices meted against the Black people (Balto, 2019). The paper below details the claims made in the book, the methods used, and the connection of Balto’s book to The Condemnation of blackness by Khalil G. Muhammad.
Quality of claims and methods
Balto (2019) details the rise of racially repressive policing in African American neighborhoods in Chicago’s historical text. Throughout American history, racial discrimination and profiling have plagued law enforcement departments despite numerous strategies to mitigate the vice. This trend can be attributed to society’s attitudes during and after the abolishment of the infamous institution of slavery (Ralph, 2019). Balto’s book is centered on the events that took place in 1919, which highlighted the dire situation that needed an immediate solution. In this particular year, explosive riots occurred as members of the minority black community demonstrated against racial policing by the Chicago Police Department (CPD). The author also details how activists of African American origin challenge this repression. Balto also illustrated that law enforcers’ punitive practices and insufficient protection was central to African American Chicagoans’ lives before. It is important to note that Chicago had become largely populated by the African American community during the early 1990s, thus giving rise to sociopolitical tension (Dubeau, 2019). Besides, there was also a growing concern about the issue of increasing drug abuse and crime rates.
The author also discloses how contemporary mass incarceration built upon the police’s racialized practices rose as a wholly developed machine of significant anti-black oppression by examining the deeper toxic system origins. During the 1900s, the minority black community had increased in population, which threatened some of the majority white community. The majority community believed that black people were uncontrollable and thus did not deserve to be treated as equals (Dubeau, 2019). Balto also challenges the literature that suggests the mid-twentieth century as a turning point for decreasing relationships between law enforcers and African Americans. The pattern of abuse perpetrated by the CPD against the black community has significantly increased even though numerous initiatives have mitigated racial policing. According to Balto’s book, police failed to safeguard the Black people’s rights and lives. In the 1919 riot, White Chicago citizens terrorized and murdered African American individuals for days, yet law enforcers exclusively arrested black people (Ralph, 2019). This demonstrated that the law enforcers protected White people’s supremacy over the lives of the Black people.
Connection of the book to “The Condemnation of blackness by Khalil G. Muhammad
The book by Muhammad liberates individuals by explaining the many entangled history layers of criminalized blackness. It also makes readers make sense of the present time. Like Balto and his assertions of Blacks’ alienation from the white Chicago neighborhoods, Muhammad’s book also details how white citizens were determined to exclude African Americans from full citizenship (Muhammad, 2010). It is important to note that the institution of slavery was abolished in 1865, following reforms under the 13th Amendment. This meant that black people were to be treated as equals to the white majority, a concept that was not well received by whites. During the early 1900s, the black community has gained more economic and political momentum as more people desired to have their rights observed (Mohammad, 2010). Both Mohammad and Balto claimed that black crimes were biologically based and thus sought to measure and prove African Americans’ inferiority through any proof of failure, either biologically or socially (Entman & Rojecki, 2001). These scholars’ logic permitted white criminality to be interpreted as a result of economic inequality and industrialization. In his book, Muhammad is concerned with how the majority of cultural explanation incriminated African American culture.
As earlier stated, the issue of racial policing within the law enforcement departments still persists despite established initiatives to mitigate the vice. However, it helps to identify the way forward in the continuing conversations regarding punishment, crime, and blackness representations in America. Balto and Muhammad’s book provides a crucial insight into how race ideas shaped urban life by bringing together scientific racism, immigrant, and migration histories (Muhammad, 2010). It also weaves together Black uplift’s ideologies, racial violence, and sociopolitical transformation in the urban North cauldron. According to Balto, the minority black community stands to gain a lot if its members could work together. It is through the community’s organized resistance that the country was enlightened about the discriminative policing enhanced by the CPD. It also provides vital insights into how race concepts molded urban life. Both books serve as a moving reminder of how the inequalities meted against the blacks were shaped and how they reach back into the nation’s history, even as America continues to grapple with racial disparities in the system of criminal justice.
Balto and Muhammad explain the reason the racial inferiority notions became connected to the black crime. Most importantly, they explain why this connection was not developed for immigrants and white people. Therefore, it is essential to assess how the nation got itself at this stage since the purpose is to augment understanding and awareness of the discourse formation on black criminality. It also helps in figuring out how to interrupt it. Both works texts are crucial in finding ways that the nation can disentangle the race and crime connection. The authors also take huge steps toward strategizing and theorizing an end to the dangerous intersection where racism has been reproduced and reinforced. It is a disturbing history for the United States, thus making it more urgent. The texts expertly create an original interpretation of policing and race, and the campaigns waged against political repression and racism by the African American struggle for liberation in the 20th century.
Conclusion
Despite the crucial histories concerning mass incarceration rise in America witnessed in the last years, there is still inadequate research that deepens American policing understanding. The CPD is one of the many law enforcement institutions that has failed to protect the people who are in dire need of security services. The 1919 riots were an example of the adverse consequences of discriminative policing, which continue to be witnessed in society today. It is unfortunate that the criminal justice system has failed to mitigate racial discrimination despite relentless pleas from the public. Balto and Mohammad’s books shed light on the concerning topic of racial policing while exploring necessary police reforms that need to be established. Besides, the two texts are essential for individuals that desire to know how the country arrived at this sad state and how it might ever escape its grasps.
References
Balto, S. (2010). Occupied territory: policing black Chicago from red summer to black power. The University of North Carolina Press | Chapel Hill
Dubeau, R. (2019). Rioting and reporting: representations of race in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Defender.
Entman, R. M., & Rojecki, A. (2001). The black image in the white mind: Media and race in America. University of Chicago Press.
Muhammad, K. G. (2010). The condemnation of blackness: Race, crime, and the making of modern urban America.
Ralph, L. (2019). The logic of the slave patrol: the fantasy of black predatory violence and the use of force by the police. Palgrave Communications, 5(1), 1-10.
Smith, M. (2019). Four Chicago Police Officers Fired for Cover-Up of Laquan McDonald Shooting (Published 2019). Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2 November 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/us/chicago-police-fired-laquan-mcdonald.html.