Police and Prejudice: An Analysis of Race-Related Incidents of Police Brutality in the Contemporary U.S.

In his book entitled Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates states, "You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regression all land, with great violence, upon the... [ view full abstract ]

In his book entitled Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates states, "You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regression all land, with great violence, upon the body." This research is focused on the disproportionate violence upon the body that black Americans face in encounters with police. The deaths of Michael Brown, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray illustrate the historical problems between the police and black Americans, as these events are certainly not isolated in time. In this research project, three time periods that encountered two or more events of nationally mediatized, race-related incidents of police brutality, and the political responses after these events occurred, are analyzed. At this point, my research shows that compared to 1991-1992 and 1997-1999, 2014-2015 proves to be a period of time in which the responses are much more pertinent, and at this point, appear to be leading to more change across the country. Based on social movement theory, the reason for this could be that the presence of the social movement Black Lives Matter has created an atmosphere in which the national agenda has changed.