Racism Blog #1
There are many people that believe that Racism has been extremely diminished and is almost nonexistant in todays society. However there seem to be cases concerning racism that have been frequently coming up in the news as well as in pop culture. The movie Crash, which came out last year brought many racial issues to the surface. Another movie would be Borat, which showed white Americans doing racist acts under the premise that the movie would only be shown in the far off nation of Khazakstan. In truth, racism seems to be an extremely important issue in today’s society and here is one recent instance:
On November 24, a group of men leaving a club in
New York City was shot at 50 times by NYPD.
The men were suspected to have a gun, and when their Altima crashed with a Ford Minivan that was serving as an undercover vehicle it resulted in the death of one Sean Bell 12 hours before he was to have his wedding. Additionally, his two companions were also injured.
Interestingly enough, there is no mention of race in the article. It does not mention the race of anyone involved. I find this pointed avoidance just as interesting as the case itself. The writer of this article cleanly left out all race. Sean Bell is known to be black from his picture, but the police are not mentioned. One source says that there were both white and black police officers involved. This only makes the situation more interesting. These two quotes from the New York times help to show how there was no good explanation for the act:
“But one after another, in conversations with Sergeant Kipp or Sergeant Wheeler, the men said they could not say how many shots they had fired. Two said they were unsure whether they had even fired at all, including a detective who investigators later learned had fired 31 shots, emptying his 9-millimeter Sig Sauer pistol, reloading and emptying it again during the frenzied barrage.”- The New York Times
“Mr. Bell, mortally wounded and not speaking, and Joseph Guzman, despite wounds from his head to his feet, were put in handcuffs after the gunfire ceased.”- The New York Times
These acts show how horrible things can happen to innocent people when race gets in the way. Witnesses say that Sean Bell had crashed and upon doing so, the driver of the Minivan got out of the car and started firing without even approaching the car. There is no accident when 50 bullets are fired.
This just goes to show that hundreds of years after the abolition of slavery, there is still lingering conflict over the matter. I do not think that this instance has a strong relation to Huck Finn because the book does not deal with the lingering effects of slavery but rather the conditions of it. And I found the entire ordeal of this case to be rather sick.
