study conducted between 2012 and 2013 of Philadelphia residents revealed some powerful findings. The study was published in 2016. The data connected racism and dwelling in neighborhoods plagued with violence and poverty to an entire child’s life trajectory. The report was published by the Child Abuse and Neglect Journal. It indicated the following. “Individually, neighborhood or community-level childhood stressors such as peer victimization, ←6 | 7→neighborhood violence, urban crowding and noise, and perceived racism have been associated with child and adolescent health issues (6).”
All of the above tendencies are based on scientific findings not emotional pleas. Conduct a swift Internet search on the above topics and you will find hundreds of related articles and a handful of other studies. What is disheartening is that because officers frequently patrol these impoverished neighborhoods, many of them have become adjusted to observing frequent criminal behavior. As a result, gross generalizations have led to policies such as “stop and frisk,” mass incarcerations, officer-involved shootings of unarmed civilians, racist social media posts, and worst of all is the blanket negative judgements of individuals that live in these communities. The effects of racism and poverty affect far more than just public unrest and political division. They hinder entire communities from rebuilding and advancing.
It is no longer just a philosophy that African Americans have a major uphill hike to achieve even middle-class status as a community, but it has rather become a scientific hypothesis with corresponding factual data. “To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the effect of both family and community level ACEs on health outcomes in a diverse population. We found that ACEs are associated with various negative health outcomes, including increased risk for sexually transmitted infections, history of substance abuse, smoking history, mental illness, depression, asthma, and fractures. Our findings support the primacy of family relationships on the life course trajectory of a child and the importance of interventions targeted at families to promote long-term health, particularly in socioeconomically disadvantaged populations (6).” Ultimately, this vicious cycle is an inevitable barrier to the rebuilding of the black American community at large.
In this book, you will gain more than just biased complaints about racism. In fact, this book is exciting because it is fact-based and provides a deeper look at both the roots of the American racial division as well as the medical and psychological reasons that peril the black community. Whether you are conservative or liberal, after reading this book in its entirety, you will gain a more complete picture of the factors that hinder the rebuilding of the African American community. In order to fully understand the situation beyond a shallow emotional perspective, a deeper examination of the history, roots, and other contributing factors are required. Read with an open mind and you will gain a full perspective of the plight facing the African American community.
The barriers to the rebuilding of the black community are genuine. They cannot be politically manipulated, rationalized, or downplayed. Dozens upon dozens of sociological and scientific studies have placed a spotlight on the symptons of a ←7 | 8→much deeper root to the problem. The barriers are heavier than just the social media’s accentuation of racism and slavery. Continue reading and you will discover what they truly are as well as some suggested solutions. A study conducted just a few years ago published in the Child Trends journal regarding childhood trauma broken down by race and state reported that “disturbingly, black and Hispanic children and youth in almost all divisions of the United States are more likely to experience ACEs than their white and Asian peers. To some extent, these racial disparities reflect the lasting effects of inequitable policies, practices, and social norms. Discriminatory housing and employment policies, bias in law enforcement and sentencing decisions, and immigration policies have concentrated on disadvantaged black and Hispanic children, in particular, and leave them disproportionally vulnerable to traumatic experience like ACEs (4).”
References
1. Feagin, J., & Bennefield, Z. (2014). Systemic racism and US health care. Social Science & Medicine, 103, 7–14.
2. Hoerner, E., & Tulsky, R. (2019). Cops around the country are posting racist and violent comments on Facebook. InJusticeWatch.com. Retrieved from https://www.injusticewatch.org/interactives/cops-troubling-facebook-posts-revealed/
3. Prout, H. T., & Fedewa, A. (2015). Counseling and psychotherapy with children and adolescents: Theory and practice for school and clinical settings. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
4. Sacks, V., & Murphey, D. (2018). The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, nationally, by state, and by race or ethnicity. Child Trends. Retrieved from https://ncvc.dspacedirect.org/handle/20.500.11990/1142
5. United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. (May 4, 2015). Investigation of The Fergusson Police Department. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf
6. Wade, R., Jr., Cronholm, P. F., Fein, J. A., Forke, C. M., Davis, M. B., Harkins-Schwarz, M., & Bair-Merritt, M. H. (2016). Household and community-level adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes in a diverse urban population. Child Abuse & Neglect, 52, 135–145.
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In times past, there was often a fervent and compelling reason for the escalating use of force by law enforcement personnel. In the 1990s, gang violence was at an all-time high throughout the United States, especially in cities with high rates of poverty and unemployment. Federal, state, and local government agencies made committed attempts to suppress gang-related violence and its subsequent criminal behavior. Increased police patrols, more frequent arrests, and harsher punishments were some of the common methods used to suppress violence.
As a result, the United States of America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, amounting to a total of approximately 6.8 million people living in correctional facilities at one point in 2014. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), “in 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34% of the total 6.8 million correctional population. African Americans are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whites and the imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of white women. Nationwide, African American children represent 32% of children who are arrested, 42% of children who are detained, and 52% of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court (7).”
However, despite the escalation of police presence in urban communities, stricter enforcement of local laws, particularly those related to the possession and ←9 | 10→use of illegal drugs, and higher rates of incarceration, there were relatively few police killings of unarmed suspects in the 1990s compared with this past decade. In recent times, the proliferation of fatalities as a result of officer-involved shootings of unarmed African American suspects is staggering. The Washington Post conducted a two-year-long study on the relevance of race in police shootings. The following is an excerpt of the findings of that study, published on December 26, 2015.
“Race remains the most volatile flash point in any accounting of police shootings. Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year, the Post’s
