(Institution Name)
Background:
One of the biggest problems that the United States is facing today is that of racial intolerance. African Americans reside in the United States in millions and not only are they found abundantly, but they are also participants in all the professions in the country including the civil services (Bennet, 1995). Hence, they have become from slaves to valuable part of the society in the United States. The tension however between the different races has elevated greatly over the past decade as once again there is found a fair bit of friction at both the political and public level.
Although most people in the country are not convinced that race makes any difference in the efforts being put towards national development, there are plenty of individuals who believe that race defines the virtue and vice of a person. Furthermore, a sense of superiority emerges in the whites considering the fact that they believe to be prior inhabitants of the region in the United States and that the black living in the area were originally slaves who have now educated themselves (Winant, 2004).
Introduction:
Dylann Storn Roof, a 21-year-old murdered nine people in cold blood on racial grounds. The event unfolded in June 2015 when the killer first asked for permission from a senior pastor at an African-American church to attend the ceremony. After he was granted the permission, he entered and killed nine people in the church including the pastor. He was later arrested in Shelby North Carolina. The killer was just 21 years old at the time he committed this crime and what is
even more shocking is that he claimed to have wanted to ignite a race war between the whites and the blacks. He claimed that he was unhappy with the African Americans living in the country and that he wanted them all to leave their country.
Not only was he a murderer but also administer of a website that was alleged to portray serious racial arguments against the blacks. In a conversation, Roof supported his action that the African Americans are causing much crime in the country and not only that they are becoming robbers and criminals and drug sellers, but also rapists. He was very upset with the happenings that almost every crime that he witnessed or heard about involved an African American. The content found with Roof heavily included advocacy of white as a race and degradation of the African Americans (The Guardian, 2016).
It is worth mentioning here that such thought is very common, especially in the younger people living in the United States. Not only is the country an ethnically diverse one but also a very highly competitive one. It is a fact that many African Americans are involved heavily in different sorts of crimes in the country, but it is important to recognize the reasons for why is it so. Discrimination against the African Americans has always been there, in education, many times it becomes difficult for the blacks to get adequately educated and finding reasonable jobs is even tougher. This pushes them to indulge in criminal activities in order to eat. Many times, their criminal actions are merely out of a sense of revenge and rebellion. Hence, it is safe to say that the society has the biggest role to play in shaping the characters and profession of the African American society of today in the United States. But it is something that many Americans fail to realize and develop stereotypical behavior towards certain racial groups.
Lessons Learnt:
The officials were amazed at the findings that they made after the arrest of Roof, and there were several visible areas where the related authorities had failed to deliver. Firstly, the gun control act and its enforcement were exposed to everyone that the American authorities have not been doing their job well enough to ensure that they prevent young people as Roof from possessing a gun. Secondly, it was realized that while the website administered by Roof was online for a long time, it never came to the notice of the police and the authorities to get suspicious about the intentions of this young boy. The monitoring and administering system had altogether failed to perform their job effectively. Although in the United States, there is normally not considered much of a requirement for the police officers to stand guard nearby the church in the African-American community. Still, in high tension societies, there should be police officers on patrol to prevent such events from occurring (Taylor & Whitney, 1999(.
The biggest lesson that is there for the police to learn is that they need to perform their role in reducing the tension between the racial groups. This should take place from school level onwards, and people should be made to realize that everyone legally living in the United States is an equal citizen, and any person can become a criminal given the conditions. Police should first remove from their own structure, the discriminatory behavior of the African Americans i.e. needless killing and torture of African Americans as have sometimes been noticed, because it gives rise to a very negative sentiment in both the Black and the White racial groups in the society.
References
Bennett, C. I. (1995). Research on Racial Issues in American Higher Education.
The Guardian. (2016). South Carolina judge summons jury pool of 600 in Dylann Roof trial. Retrieved March 20, 2016 from http://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2016/jan/28/dylann-roof-trial-south-carolina-church-shooting-jury-pool
Taylor, J., & Whitney, G. (1999). Crime and racial profiling by US police: Is there an empirical basis?. The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 24(4), 485.
Winant, H. (2004). Behind blue eyes: Whiteness and contemporary US racial politics. Off white: Readings on power, privilege, and resistance, 2, 3-16.
