Why are police brutal to people, especially people of color?

Why are police brutal to people, especially people of color? Many people, especially people of color have suffered from police brutality. Police brutality has caused many deaths to innocent people and caused so much anxiety to people of color. The police’s actions have had a big effect on many people causing them to feel scared. Most of the time police don’t pay for the consequences for their actions and that is very unfair.

In the article titled “What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work,” published by author Lynne Peeples states “Scientists have tried to identify some predictive factors, such as racial bias, a bad temper, insecure masculinity and other individual characteristics, many of which can be identified through simulations already used in officer training.” In other words police brutality can be predicted by police’s characteristics having to do with having a bad temper and them thinking that to show they are a man they have to be tough. This affects people because police trying to prove that they are a man can lead to them not thinking logically, thus creating stress and anxiety. Author Corey Williams wrote “This idea that, for Black people, we don’t feel — currently in this country — that we have the ability to control our environment and protect ourselves and our families.”  He said, “We could still be gunned down in the street. That creates anxiety. That creates stress.” Many people of color suffer from this and can’t go out without being scared that the police will attack them.

It seems as if police have often been encouraged to be brutal. An article titled “Police brutality, racism pushing black anxiety.” the author stated that President “Trump, who claims to have done more for Black people than his predecessors, has been accused of using race to stoke division. He has encouraged police to use a heavy-handed approach on people protesting against racism and police brutality.” In other words, the president thinks that using violence would solve the problem. This shows that if police keep getting encouraged to be violent then police brutality will never end. This can cause many negative effects for people of color in the future. Many people of color get hurt or even killed because of police brutality. “Black Americans lived in fear of law enforcement officials armed with weapons who monitored their every behavior, attacked them on the street and in their homes, and killed them for the slightest alleged provocation.” This quote means that many police assume things and end up hurting innocent people.

Targeting Black people is not just a recent thing. According to the article titled “Not just George Floyd: Police departments have 400-year history of racism” it states “In 1971, the Nixon administration launched the war on drugs, resulting in increased arrests and harsher prison sentences largely aimed at black people. Former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman later confirmed that the effort was designed to hurt black families.” This supports the idea that people of color were always targeted because of their skin color. “Data from California show that police stopped and used force against Black people disproportionately, compared with other racial groups.” People of color suffer from police brutality a lot more than other groups.

It is clear that police brutality is affecting people of color and that not enough has ever been done about it. This has been going on for a long time and it is still happening today. It affects many people and it scares them. People shouldn’t be scared or have anxiety but they do and it will still keep happening if we don’t do anything. Police should start to investigate more deeply instead of assuming things that can cost someone’s life or innocence. I think that with support we can try to stop police from targeting people of color.We should stop encouraging violent behavior because if we don’t, things might just get worse.