Stacy Smith

11.21.17

3rd hour

Argumentative Essay

The statistics of police officers killing black men are alarming there have been

absolutely no justice for any of the victims. The famous ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement

started after a heap of innocent black males who were clearly wrongfully shot and killed

by white policemen. It’s been proven that African Americans are being killed by police

officers at a higher rate than any other Americans as of 2016. In Newkirk’s article “What

will make the killing stop?”, he states this was written hours after an additional white

man shot a unarmed black citizen who had absolutely no way of fighting back, simply

because he was restrained. Literally as he was still writing the next day Philando Castile

gets shot at a traffic light, its as if black men walk outside and wonder am I the next

innocent victim to an outraged white policemen who doesn’t like me due to the color of

my skin. I feel as if Newkirk’s article is 100 percent correct because Cops are put on a

pedestal where the definition of self-defense is changed for them because they're not

like us citizens who aren’t officers and who are given killing privileges due to the color of

their skin and the occupation they hold.

The Trayvon Martin case was one that started numerous headlines,

protest,movements, this story was about an unarmed young black male who was killed

at the age of 17, by George Zimmerman a white neighborhood watch volunteer walking
down the street who saw him as a threat and told the jury he was acting in “self-

defense”, simply because he had a hood on with his hand in his pocket and holding a

drink. After the two day deliberations the six person jury found George Zimmerman not

guilty on all counts. Even though Zimmerman was ordered to not leave his vehicle and

was told to stay put, instead he proceeded to do what he wanted, went after Trayvon

Martin and killed him but stated it was all in “self-defense”. Although the jury was shown

so much evidence that Zimmerman was guilty, they still failed to put him behind bars

because of the failing justice system, that only see African Americans as threats or

harmful beings to society.

Following Trayvon Martin’s death approximately less than a year later an 18 year old

black male was fatally shot in ferguson florissant by a white police officer who again

stresses it was all in “self-defense”. In this case Mike Brown was a suspect in a

convenient store robbery, and in 3 minutes of Darren Wilson arriving he had shot and

killed the victim. Now if we sit here and think about how short 3 minutes really is, what

all could’ve possibly happened in this short span of time for this grown man to feel

threatened enough to shoot this 18 year old a total of six firings two times in the head

and four in the arm. Darren Wilson stated that him and Michael Brown was wrestling for

his weapon,after Brown had “approached” him. One of Wilson’s shots was fired from the

car in which doesn’t make sense with his story but the details clearly didn’t matter to the

courtroom because again he wasn’t found guilty on any counts.

In “The War On Cops” by Heather MacDonald, in the text she shows how she is a

very bias white woman who believes that police lives matter more than black americans

and that were focused on the wrong thing because police should be able to kill 1,100
people in order to arrest a certain amount. I feel as if Heather MacDonald is a racist

women and that’s why she feels more black americans should be killed by cops and

“blue lives matter more than black lives”. We all are equal human beings and should be

treated equally, just because someone is not of the same skin tone or not of higher

status than someone else doesn’t mean that gives another citizen the right to be able to

kill one another. “The lives of 306 black people are not worth the lives of 13 police

officers.”, in which shows how little she values African Americans and their existence,

showing all readers her opinions are bias and not factual.

All the cases stated above prove Newkirk’s article the killing of innocent black men

happens so often that there’s a sense of normalcy when situations like this shouldn’t

even exist. For an unarmed citizen let’s not even say he’s black but for someone to shot

and killed in an act of “self defense”, makes absolutely no sense because why are you

shooting if the victim has no weapon of object of danger. Even in Trayvon Martin’s case

he wasn’t even the same size as Zimmerman, he was a lot smaller so if there were

even such a thing as an altercation between the two George Zimmerman could’ve

handled the situation without a gun. In each and everyone of these cases the officer

plead to “self-defense”, in which shows the different ways white policemen can and are

using their power to get away with murder by killing out of spite and covering it up with

this term.

”Author Of “The War On Cops” Argues That More Black People Should be Killed By

Police”.HuffPost.Oath Inc, October 10,2016.

McCarthy, Ciara.Swaine, Jon.”Young black men again faced highest rate of US police
 killings in 2016”.The Guardian.Guardian News and Media, January 8,2017.

Newkirk ll, Vann R. “What will make the killings stop?”.The Atlantic.The Atlantic Monthly

Group, July 7,2016.