Chokehold, Book Review Example

US justice is designed to oppress and humiliate black people. It begins with the chokehold. African Americans have often been victims of chokeholds as the US justice system is designed in such a manner that it oppresses them. African Americans are totally vulnerable to chokehold as their blood circulation system does not open instantly as other people. Hence, they instantly snuff out when choked for a short time. As much as numerous police departments in the US have banned chokeholds, police officers often apply this measure when they recognize a threat.

Summary

There has not been a single incidence in American history when there has been peace between the police and black people. Nothing since slavery; not an execution, not Jim Crow seclusion, not restrictive housing covenants, not significant white opposition to graduate school segregation, not the relentless efforts to curtail African Americans from voting, not one of the measures has triggered the extent of outrage between black communities as to when they have felt under brutal invasion by the constabularies. The majority of the incidences when African Americans have secluded ancient civilian rights measures such as establishing court cases and peaceful marching and in its place have demonstrated in the motorways while destroying the state’s symbols from the police’s wrong deeds. States such as Watts in 1965, Los Angeles in 1992, and Miami in 1980 have all been set in flames due to the police assassinating a black man.

Cops regularly humiliate and hurt black people, as this is what they are employed to do. Almost every impartial investigation of a US law execution agency identifies that police treat African Americans with disgust as their policy. In Ferguson, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Cleveland, the US federal courts and justice departments have insinuated that police institutions’ official practices incorporate abusing African Americans’ rights. The police are entitled to kill, injure, thrash, pepper spray, frisk, use dogs and detain black people in situations where they do not apply similar measures to whites. There needs to be justice and equality as long as people from all races are considered to ensure peaceful co-existence between society members. Thus, when armed representatives of the country are hurting individuals, in our view, every citizen’s moral obligation is to enquire reasons behind.

Evaluation and Critique

Evidence of Discrimination

Butler confirms incidences of sex and torture in chapter 3. Butler claims that the police and Black males are pretty controversial and stress credibility. The central thesis emanates from a 1954 police guide that reads; ‘the officer ought to feel with sensitive fingers every segment of the prisoner’s body. A thorough search shall be conducted of the prisoner’s armpits, arms, and groin zones around the testicles and the legs’ whole surface down to the feet (Butler, 2018). Such searches are applicable via frisk and stop practices in the form of crude assertions of police brutality against blacks in the streets.

Such evidence is quite solid and compelling. It signifies that the intersectionality of gender, race, and the prevalent legalization of guns insulates police from assertions of excessive force from judicial scrutiny. Police are allowed to conduct searches, particularly towards the black communities perceived to be quite dangerous.

Relevance to Social Work

Chokehold is a brilliantly bestowing book that affronts all notions that one thinks they recognize about criminal justice and racism in America. This highlights on some vivacious and decorated social concepts entangled in radical practicality. Chokehold expresses the lived incidences of the African Americans in the nation who are emphasized on by a justice system designated to castigate them. As a result, such a book is relevant to any social worker who desires to familiarize and tackle injustices that surround people of goodwill. The book aligns social workers with the everyday encounters they are likely to face in the workplace, hence preparing them psychologically. As a result, they will gain sufficient background regarding the system’s setting towards black people, as Butler discovered when he worked as a prosecutor. Social workers can get to learn how to address issues about the discriminated members of the community.

Actions of Social Workers

Social workers have to disassemble subjugation systems and eradicate racism in their social work line of work. It is the duty of social workers to define with an all accommodative society. Social workers should contemplate and apply such knowledge to drive people toward deeds for dependable social change. It is people’s duty to build upon social workers’ meticulous work in catering for health care access, calling for civil rights, and child support. It will be possible to bring about equality in the judicial system and negate police violence on African Americans. Social workers have a legal duty to disintegrate racism, both skillfully and personally, and demystify what it is to be a law-abiding citizen. Directly riling racism at the organization, personal, and national levels is the only antiracist duty we must all adhere to. Practical presentation of the NASW Code of ethics as a guidepost, public workers will be able to eliminate tyrannical systems and object to a culture of white dominance.

References

Butler, P. (2018). Chokehold: Policing black men. The New Press.