Police Brutality And Injustice In The NFL

The National Football League is a wide phenomenon around the country, as it provides us with the best quality of game time aired on tv. The NFL is a part of our pop culture considering it’s one of the most watched sports in the country that holds one of the biggest events of the year called The Super Bowl. The NFL has been a part of our pop culture since its beginning in 1920 and it draws the audience back in with its influential star players. Although, recently there has been a decline in viewers as during the 2017 season there was a controversial ruckus caused by NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem. Police brutality and injustice are what lead to a rise in tension in racism, protests and marches, and a divided nation. The

The sudden rise in deaths among African Americans in police shootings led to a hard questioning to why it was happening. Many of the African Americans who were in support of victims of the shooting blamed it on white cops being racist towards African Americans. In past events of police brutality such as , “ The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and other unarmed Black victims at the hands of police sparked a national conversation about racism and policing”, which made African Americans to automatically assume that these white cops were killing African Americans because of their hate towards their race. This also led a step further towards investigating as the school of public health had informed the public that, “ A new study led by School of Public Health researchers finds states with a greater degree of structural racism, particularly residential segregation, have higher racial disparities in fatal police shootings of unarmed victims.” (School of Public Health). The SPH’s statement revealed that the rise in racial tension effects most of the populations with the vast majority of the race being African American. This is because higher rates of crime occurring in African American communities was leading to an increase in police watch. Taking pop culture into consideration, for example, some sports like baseball used to only have

As the shootings of the unarmed African Americans unfolded, there were two different viewpoints on what the circumstances were. African Americans believed that it was solely because the white cops were being racist towards their race, and White Americans believed it to be because the policemen were doing their job and trying to keep themselves safe. Unfortunately people don’t have the ability to see the thoughts going through the police officers head to justify whether or not they were being hateful towards African Americans or genuinely concerned for their safety, and is also the reasoning of why we are so divided in terms of beliefs and views on these types of situations. New York Times writers Timothy Williams and Michael Wines discussed that, “ Both black anger at police killings and the boiling frustrations of some whites who feel they are ceding their long-held place in society have been constant undercurrents in politics” ( New York Times). The controversial actions of police brutality leaves us in an endless battle to prove the other side wrong which is why we are divided as a nation. The same situation would probably occur if it were the other way around in which African American policemen were killing White Americans that were unarmed. White Americans would react with protests just like the ones showed in the NFL and give their opinions on police