Erma Agus Setiyaningsih 2011120031

Racism in Criminal Justice System of Melting Pot Nation United States of America
America is called a nation of melting pot where diver race, ethnicity, idealism, and culture melt into one pot of United States of America. The nation itself built by diver immigrants from diver part of the world such as European, Dutch, and even African who are enslaved in America by white community. From that point, the term black and white was created. It is historically explained that white is superior than black as the slave, and white is clean while black is a dirty skin color. Problems of race, is obviously seen by this point of view. However, it was only the old song that racism is officially admitted as the big issues in America. Now, they say that it is not an issue anymore. There are many American who strive for equality and civil right movement such as Dr. King who promised that there will be no judgment coming based on the race but the by our character instead in United States. Obamas speech which stated that there is no such thing as black, white, Latino, or Asian America but only the entire United States of America which matters. Even, a rap song which titled Say it loud, Im black and Im proud by James Brown can be one of the affirmative action against racism in America. There are many perspectives about long history of racism issue in America. Some said that they are completely believe that the racism issue is extinct, some said that there is still a racism issue but somehow see a hope of change, or some who just be racist anyway. In this synthesis, I would like analyze from several papers that I read on how actually the implementation of no-racism action from criminal justice system point of view in America. Here, I do believe that there should be some change and improvement on the status quo right now regarding to American racism issues regarding to criminal justice system. Positive energy is believed coming from the president of United States of America, Barrack Hussein Obama. The first black president of America who was successfully won twice in a row of the election. However, he cannot deny the fact that his country still has problem with race. As he said in the book titled The Audacity of Hope, he admitted that racism still become the issue of his fellow black community and how black or non-white community are treated differently in the community. The fact is, they cannot pursuit their dream of education and welfare of economy. Even, how they justify by the court system in America. I do believe that his statement is true. In decades, black was so discriminated by white America. As I watched the movie called The Great Debaters. I saw a culture of

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lynching for fun that done by white American to black American. According to Hawkin (1998), the act of lynching, chain-gang penal practice, prosecutorial, and judicial bigotry were commonly used in southern part court system. This is of course inappropriate if people just simple burn alive person. There many controversies whether criminal justice system in America is bias on particular race or not. One of the one who are against the injustice system is coming from Wilbanks (1987), who wrote about The myths of criminal justice system. It stated that criminal are courted not based on their race or ethnicity but based on the level of criminal seriousness. However, counter argument coming from Walker, Spohn, and DeLone (1996), by The Color of Justice. It stated that police tend to easily use hard penalty and even death penalty on African American criminals rather than Anglo-American criminals or whites. For example, it shown that there is a clear discrimination between the penalty done to crackcocaine users and powder-cocaine users. Based on federal guidelines, only people who have 100 gram of powder cocaine will be punished as severe as people who have 1 gram of crack cocaine. The problematic issue in this case is, most of crack cocaine is black, while powder cocaine is whites. Thus, black defendants on crack cocaine have tried government to do amendment of the rule. In my point of view, I believe that since both of the drug is cocaine only converted to different forms, they should be punished equally, one gram to one gram ratio should be used in determining the punishment. Another fact was found by the statement according to Shelden (2008, p.182), African American child who was born each day has 1 in 3 chance to finally end up in prison. This fact is ironic. The fact that low economic problem has pushed them already to the field of criminality and drugs, but why they also should get injustice treatment on Americans criminal justice system. I might also like to insert an opinion from Moore (2004) in his book called Stupid White Men New Edition. He stated that somehow, whites tend to use black as a black goat or even victims of whites criminal action. I realize that this statement is not valid enough to be taken for granted but a published book will not say a completely rubbish talk right? Another shocking fact is that, according to Fox & Zawitz (2005), more black are being the victim of serious crime than whites are, black has the opportunity to be murdered 6 times than whites in 2002. It clearly supports Moore (2004) arguments about how black has enough injustice treatment to be brought with them.

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I believe that racism issue has been sporadically affects many factors in all American community. All particular ethnic and race in America still have to deal with segregation of race in education, politics (even Obama are successfully break the chain of racism in politics), and somehow it burden them in their casual daily life. Those minorities have enough burdens to take while they cannot hold into anything. Even without racism issues, they have to deal with their own personal problems like economy and welfare as a human being. Criminal justice system should be able to bring about justice to every human being in America to hold with. The message of justice should be there from the very first time. Thus, there should be an action taken to deal with this injustice in the criminal justice system in America. Affirmative action in case of criminal justice system amendment should be there immediately. I believe that severing the punishment for those African American who commit crimes will not be able to solve their attitude of criminality. There should be something instead of burdening them of punishment at the end of the day. I believe that punishment will only make them more rebels, moreover if they have realized that there is no even justice in court. As a final statement, there should be changes, humanity values should be able to lead us to a better of United States of America in upholding justice for all of the human being in that melting pot society. Resources: Obama, B. (2006). The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Three Rivers Press. New York. Washington, D. (2007). The Great Debater. Harpo Production. USA Hawkins, Darnell F. 1998. Working Memo. Presented at the Conference on Social Science Knowledge on Race, Racism, and Race Relations, sponsored by the American Sociological Association, April 2628, McLean VA. Wilbanks, W. (May, 1987). The Myth of A Racist Criminal Justice System. Wadsworth Pub Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. Pp. 88-93 Shelden, R. (2008). Constructing the Dangerous Classes. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Moore, M. (2004). Stupid White Men. Penguin; New Ed edition Fox, James Alan and Marianne W. Zawitz. 2005. Homicide Trends in the United States.Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved October 13, 2005 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/ homtrnd.htm).