(White) Police and Black Males
SOC604: Lecture II
Joseph D. Lewandowski
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(White) Police and Black Males
•American urban police forces as the face of the State/Dominant •Possess enormous discretionary
power to enforce—or not to enforce—existing laws
•Often have military backgrounds
•Receive working-class salaries
•Serve as agents of social control in contexts of profound anomie
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Cycles of oppression
• * Black males stopped by police for being black (commonly referred to as ‘color-coding’ or
‘racial profiling’) • * Black males then arrested and receive a police record for minor/non-violent
offences (loitering, curfew violations, possession of small amounts of marijuana, speeding—‘doin 55
in a 54, as Jay Z says) • * Cycle continues when they are stopped a subsequent time and are now
‘criminals’ with a ‘police record’
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Key interview excerpt:
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•‘At 8:30 on a Thursday evening…’ (p.185)
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Reflexivity vis-à-vis ‘the Man’: Negotiating Police Encounters in the Urban Milieu
• * ‘Street’ versus ‘Decent’ (or ‘square’)
• * Code-switching
• * Camouflaging
• * Alternate ‘pose’ vis-à-vis ‘the Man’
• * Dialog and dialectic switching
• * Urban agents/street cultures as objects/practices in need of social control
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(White) Police and Black Males
•The Identification Card
• * Symbolic weapon of identity within an existing legitimate institution—such cards say, ‘I am not
just Black, but also a university student or a business employee.’
• * Way to establish identity beyond ‘the hood’
• * Badge/emblem of status in the dominant society
• * Identifies urban actors as agents already ‘under control’
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Key interview excerpt:
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•‘I know how I used to feel when I enrolled in college last year, when I had an ID card…(p.188)
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Militarization of American Police Forces
• * Federal surplus of military vehicles and weapons
• * Discounted pricing to State and local police forces
• * Military grade outfitting of urban police with army assault rifles, body armor, night vision
and advanced surveillance technology, tanks, helicopters, etc.
• * Creation of ‘special’ assault units
• * Dialog and dialectic switching
• * Urban agents/street cultures as an object in need of social control
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(White) Police and Black Males
•Baghdad by the Bay? Syria, or St. Louis?
• * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-gordon/san-francisco-police-mario-woods_b_9298196.html
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• * http://mashable.com/2014/08/14/5-things-police-militarization-america-ferguson-mike-brown
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