An important Sociologist that was covered this week was W.E.B. Du Bois who did a lot of work about the obstacles that different races of people face in society. One of his important contributions was the idea of double-consciousness, which involves the inner conflict within individuals who find that parts of themselves seem to clash. An example of this would be when one's identity of being an African-American as well as an American citizen seem to collide, such as with the stop and frisk policy in New York City. While they are well aware that they're American citizens, they're treated like less than that when they're stopped and frisked because of what their skin color is. This promotes the idea in their mind that they will always be an "other" in society who doesn't fully belong. This also tends to begin a loop, in which people that are identified as criminals may engage in this behavior due to expectations from others. This can cause a self-fulfilling prophecy in creating more criminals and hostile behavior due to these practices, instead of inhibiting them as is the main objective.
I was honestly astounded by the video we watched in class of the young man who was able to record the police stopping and frisking him. They were intentionally trying to aggravate the youth and get him to make a mistake so that they could take him in. This is horrible behavior, which I'm glad was filmed as this is a great way to show the world how these stop and frisk policies actually are carried out. These individuals are harassed and treated like less than the American citizen that they are due to the color of their skin. As more of these stories come out, hopefully this policy will be changed so that people don't have to worry about being targeted by the police for these searches while they're walking around their own neighborhood.
These stops are very humiliating for the innocent people who are targeted based on their race.
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