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Zera Gonzales(1)

Nikki Grigoriou(1)

Heather Jones(1)

Stefan Mada(2)

Diarra Niang(2)

Rishabh Saini(2)

Mohammed Imran(3)

Kenneth Vazquez Nava(3)

Dillon Otto(3)

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Step 1

a.) write short explanation and analysis of characters.

b.) identify any systemic discrimination and power structures that affect the individuals

c.) provide evidence/support using course resources

Step 2

a.) locate resources that work to mitigate (lessen) the systemic discrimination experienced by the characters

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James Cameron, an African American, was being pursued by a vengeful group of white men after he was arrested for robbery. James Cameron and other African Americans were put in a cell, and the only sound he could hear was the shouting voices of a big group of white males beating on the cell and chanting his name. Eventually, the mob broke into James Cameron's cell, beat him, put a rope around his neck, and pushed him under the tree that two other men were hanging from. Then, a strong voice from the crowd intervened to stop James Cameron from being lynched, screaming for Cameron's innocence.

In this video and in the current world we live in, we have seen the wrongful incarceration of African Americans time and time again. This is still happening today and “...a 2022 report from the registry found that innocent Black people were seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than innocent white people.” (https://innocenceproject.org/race-and-wrongful-conviction/#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20a%202022%20report%20from,in%20the%20criminal%20legal%20system. ) In James Cameron’s situation, we know that he was accused of robbery simply due to the color of his skin and the fact that African Americans at that time were met with little to no mercy.

Today, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) exposes unfair imprisonment of innocent individuals and fights wrongfully convicted people, raising doubt on the legitimacy of even the most serious cases. This organization has helped many wrongfully convicted people get their freedom back. https://eji.org/issues/wrongful-convictions/

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Mohammad Ishaq, a 22-year-old Muslim man, was killed at a Hindu temple event for taking a banana. On September 24th, 2023, at around 5 AM, Ishaq was tied to an iron pole with a leather belt and was beaten mercilessly by a mob. That was because he suspected he had stolen "Prasad." "Prasad" is an offering for the ritual at the prayer event for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. Ishaq's father, Wajid, 60, said, "Those who killed my son found it offensive that a Muslim toucher their prasad." This wasn't because he stole Prasad; it was because he was Muslim. As the article from Al Jazeera states, "Assaults and mob lynching, mainly of Muslims, have been rising in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014." Since Ishaq was Muslim and accepted Prasad, people found it offensive that a Muslim man accepted Prasad and instead framed it as something he stole. The Hindus have made lynching a Muslim a ritual. The article is marked as Islamophobia, so this is targeting Muslims, and it is related to the James Cameron and Jesse Hunter situations since they were discriminated against just like this Muslim man.

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Mob ties the 22-year-old to a pole and beats him to death over allegations he stole 'prasad' or religious offering.
New Delhi, India - Sitting outside his home in a narrow lane in India's capital, Mohammad Wajid recounts the killing of his 22-year-old son to a TV journalist.

Inside, the four sisters of Mohammad Ishaq look sullen as they huddle together at their dimly lit house in New Delhi's Sundar Nagri area on Wednesday.

Keep reading

"I have lost everything," Ishaq's father Abdul Wajid told Al Jazeera as his eyes welled up with tears and his voice broke.

At around 5am on Tuesday, a mob tied Ishaq to an iron pole with a leather belt and beat him up mercilessly on suspicion that he had stolen "prasad", or a ritualistic offering, at a prayer event organised by the area's Hindus to observe the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.

The event was held three lanes away from Ishaq's house.

"My son was killed because he ate prasad," Wajid, 60, said. "Those who killed my son found it offensive that a Muslim touched their prasad."

Wajid, who sells vegetables in a pushcart, said his Hindu customers often offer him the prasad and he accepts it without a second thought. "Prasad is a gift from bhagwan or Allah. I do not refuse it."

Killed 'for taking a banana'

Ishaq's sister Uzma told Al Jazeera her brother was lynched "for taking a banana" and the mob left him tied to the pole after the brutal assault.

"His nails were broken, some taken out and his fingers had cuts. He was brutally beaten because he was a Muslim," she said. "He was unable to speak and his condition was critical."

Uzma said Ishaq was found lying on the road by a boy from their neighbourhood who picked him up and brought him home. He succumbed to his injuries a few hours later at his home.

Ishaq's family said they did not take him to hospital. The police said they were informed about the incident after he had passed away.

As a video of the assault went viral on social media, people demanded action by the police, which registered a case of murder and arrested six people.

"The initial inquiry has found that a group of men stopped him on the suspicion that he was a thief and then they tied and beat him." Joy N Tirkey, the police official in the area, said in a video statement.

According to the neighbours, Ishaq was mentally challenged. "He was a simple boy who did not bring any harm to anyone," autorickshaw driver Mohammad Saleem, who lives in the same lane, told Al Jazeera.

He said Ishaq would help everyone in the lane carry their load. "He was a good boy. He never said no. We would pay him 20 or 50 rupees for the job."

Wajid wants justice for the killing of his only son.

"We are so far satisfied with the police action but we want the men who killed my son to receive the same fate," he said.

Assaults and mob lynchings, mainly of Muslims, have been rising in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. The government denies the allegation.

Dozens of Muslims have been lynched or attacked by far-right Hindu mobs over suspicion of killing cows, whose slaughter is banned in most Indian states because some Hindus consider cows sacred.

Sharjeel Usmani a New Delhi-based Muslim student activist, said Ishaq's lynching reveals "a dark reality about a shift in how a section of Hindu society practices their religion".

"Lynching a Muslim has become akin to a ritual and that's something Hindu leaders must think about," he said.

Bano, who goes by one name and lives in the house opposite Wajid's, told Al Jazeera no politician has visited the family so far.

"They are poor people. They should be helped but we know no one will come because we are Muslim," she said.
Additional reporting by Sameer Mushtaq

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Muslim man lynched in India 'for taking a banana' at Hindu temple event

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Mob ties the 22-year-old to a pole and beats him to death over allegations he stole 'prasad' or religious offering.

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One legal resource specifically dedicated to helping Muslims in the US who face discrimination is Muslim advocates, who sue discriminatory organizations or parts of government on behalf of Muslims.

The ACLU is an organization (https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/discriminatory-profiling/anti-muslim-discrimination) is a broader organization that works on a variety of fronts to help many different often-discriminated groups.

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Muslim Advocates - Halting Bigotry in its Tracks

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Ensuring that American Muslims have a seat at the table with expert representation so that all people can live, love, work, study, travel and worship free from discrimination.

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An additional resource that works to mitigate systemic discrimination against African Americans in the justice system is the Center for Policing Equity, which measures bias in policing. Through this data, they are hoping to empower data driven change in our justice system.

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How do you measure justice?

Center for Policing Equity measures bias in policing. That means we can stop it.

One in five Americans interacts with law enforcement yearly. Of those encounters, one million result in use of force. And if you're Black, you are two to four times more likely to have force used than if you are White.

Working directly with police to measure behaviors and revise policies results in fewer people killed and fewer people in jail.

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Center for Policing Equity collects data and helps law enforcement agencies identify ways to improve their relationship with the communities they serve.

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Islam Networks Group is a resource for those that want to learn more about Islam and ways to connect with the community. There are speaking events, diversity training for educators, and more.

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Islamic Networks Group (ING) - Islamic Networks Group (ING)

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Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a peace-building organization providing face-to-face education and engagement opportunities that foster understanding of Muslims and other misunderstood groups to promote harmony among all people. Schedule a Panel or Presentation Our Speakers Bureaus provide speakers and panels that supplement diversity programming and social studies content standards.

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Another additional resource mitigating systemic discrimination against people of color the Advancement Project. This non-profit organization has established the Justice Project that supports grassroot movements within communities of color challenging racial criminalization and attacking all aspects of the criminal legal system.

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Communities of color across the United States are under siege by an unforgiving criminal legal system. This system is made possible by racist laws that criminalize even the most minor actions, powerful and expansive law enforcement that harass, assault and murder with impunity, biased prosecutors and judges that make discretionary decisions, and a carceral system that serves as a disposal system.

In order for our communities to thrive, we need to divest from local policing and incarceration systems and invest in community resources like education, mental health, housing and employment. Our communities need more control and voice to create transformative change in our laws, institutions, and narratives that shape how we view and practice safety.

Advancement Project's Justice Project supports grassroots movements in communities of color that challenge racial criminalization and attack all aspects of the criminal legal system, forefronting police. We help local campaigns seeking not simply to reform, but to wholly dismantle systems that criminalize and incarcerate people of color in the name of "law and order." We support racial justice grassroots organizers through research, policy advocacy, litigation, political education, and strategic communications in cities across the country. We aim to help impacted communities define the terms and control the means by which safety is realized in their streets and neighborhoods and to re-imagine for themselves how safety is pursued.

The Justice Project's work has included supporting grassroots groups in: challenging Stop & Frisk tactics and cash bail; implementing bail outs; closing jails and fighting expansions; training lawyers to represent survivors of police violence; and seeking release of people detained pretrial in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We also work to shift narratives around safety through strategic communications in an effort to create new models for safety, while dismantling existing structures of white supremacy, including creating narrative shifting content like How Cops Get Off. How Cops Get Off is a three-part animated video series developed by the Advancement Project. Narrated by our board member, Jesse Williams, each four-minute video in the series breaks down a major structure in our culture and laws that keep cops in power and unaccountable: the dominant narratives in tv shows, movies, and news, the protectors within our criminal legal system like prosecutors and police associations, and the laws that shield cops from accountability like qualified immunity.

History of Justice Project:

Advancement Project has long collaborated with organizers and activists to combat the systemic racism of the criminal legal system. We have pioneered work to expose and end the school-to-prison pipeline and school-based arrests, including building and nurturing a grassroots movement of parents and youth. After Amadou Diallo was murdered by police d in New York City, we published a report with PolicyLink on promising community policing practices in an effort to provide tools to organizers challenging police policies and practices. For several years thereafter, Advancement Project supported a group of ministers as they sought reform of NYPD, providing legal, policy, organizing and communications assistance. Advancement Project relied upon its skill as an emergency responder to assist the Dream Defenders after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, staying with them during the 31-day takeover of the Florida capitol during which time we provided communications support and drafted Trayvon's Law, a proposal developed by young people. Similarly, in Ferguson, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, and Charlotte, Advancement Project staff provided crisis response and longer-term capacity-building support to local organizations.

These pivotal moments generated a new wave of movement resistance against racist policing practices as well as the entire criminal legal system. While systemic reform has gained mainstream support in the wake of high-profile police killings, these efforts did not go far enough. Reforms lacked an authentic connection to organizing, forcing communities to rely on system actors to implement the changes. As a result, the criminal legal system simply recalibrated to reproduce the same results. Further, many politicians have turned back the clock and fortified the police state in communities of color. In response, Advancement Project continues to support local grassroots efforts in challenging policing and incarceration systems.

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Policing and Criminalization Archives - Advancement Project

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Communities of color across the United States are under siege by an unforgiving criminal legal system. This system is made possible by racist laws that criminalize even the most minor actions, powerful and expansive law enforcement that harass, assault and murder with impunity, biased prosecutors and judges that make discretionary decisions, and a carceral system that serves as a disposal system.

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Jesse Hunter, James Cameron, and Mohammad Ishaq are just a few examples of individuals who lost their lives due to systematic discrimination and the power structures of each dominant culture. There are periods in our history where a large group of people are discriminated because of their race, sexual orientation, skin color, social class, and religious affiliation. However discrimination is not history as it still occurs in the United States where, "some people continue to employ the criteria above to evaluate others"(Samovar, 2015). The book mentions that there is still hope as a large portion of America values the fight against discrimination, in which the resources provided are examples that demonstrate the fight against discrimination.

Samovar A. L. (2015) Communication Between Cultures. Cengage Learning, 209.

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https://racialequity.org/racial-justice-organizations-and-resources/

The resource above provides a list of different organizations that have been created to fight against racism, provide justice to those who were wrongfully accused, as well as provide racial and ethnic equality. Some of those organizations are The Civil Rights Project, The Advancement Project, and Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change.

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Jesse Hunter was an African-American man who was wrongly accused of assaulting Fannie Taylor on January 1, 1923, in Sumner, Florida. Local white men started a manhunt for Mr. Hunter despite the lack of evidence against him. Additionally, Sam Carter, an African-American craftsman from Rosewood who was suspected of helping Jesse Hunter escape from a prison chain gang, was lynched as a result of a false charge against him. Jesse Hunter's case exemplifies the impact of systemic discrimination, racial discrimination, as well as the abuse of power within a dominant culture. Jesse's name is now represented as a reminder of the terrible and unfair consequences that strong/fixed biases and power can have for underrepresented communities for people of color.

Some resources that I found that work to lessen the systemic discrimination experienced by Jesse Hunter were the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) as well as the EJI (Equal Justice Initiative). https://ip-no.org/support/donate/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA3JCvBhA8EiwA4kujZjlp0oirXj8p1WN-lK9pSqdlAMmawjU-BQB8u5FNz51n5k-aHyELvhoCIKgQAvD_BwE

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Our Priorities for 2024

Protecting Our Right to Vote

States have introduced hundreds of measures to restrict the right to vote. Our democracy must meet these challenges by adopting reforms that promote safe and accessible elections.

Quality Care for Black Americans

Over 10 million people have lost their Medicaid health coverage, with communities of color bearing the brunt of the impact. The federal government has the power to provide incentives and urge these state leaders to take the actions necessary to pause unwinding, and create an automated renewal process.

Fighting for Good Jobs

The NAACP is proud to continue standing in solidarity with our fellow advocates in the labor movement. As we continuously engage in conversations with corporations and Congressional members, one thing is clear - enacting a living, minimum wage nationwide is imperative.

Putting Black America First

The future of our democracy lies in America's forgotten corners. That's why the NAACP is working hard to recruit 300K volunteers across the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
- Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP

Driving Quality of Life through Data

NAACP and Brookings have partnered on The Black Progress Index, a new analysis of the places where Black people are thriving most, as measured through their life expectancy. In the spirit of W.E.B. Du Bois, we're working to provide insight into the local civic actions that can improve life expectancy outcomes.

WE NEED YOU IN THE FIGHT

Each and every NAACP member makes a difference to the complex, ongoing work of advancing racial equity. We have driven the hardest-fought wins for civil rights and social justice - with you by our side, we can accelerate the next milestones for Black Americans.

Join this multigenerational network of activists dismantling structural racism by using your power to take action on the most pressing issues of our time.
Join NAACP today

Years the NAACP has spent fighting against racism and discrimination in communities across the country

We tackle today's toughest challenges

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NAACP is leading the fight for justice

Ensure that Black America continues to thrive
This year will be pivotal. When it comes to civil rights and social justice, we have the unique ability to secure more wins than anyone else. The issues that affect our community will make or break how we continue to thrive in this country. Together, let's amplify the voice of Black America to make sure solutions to our most pressing issues are equitable.

NAACP in your community One NAACP

We are advocates united in the fight to end racial inequality.

Our Priorities for 2024

Protecting Our Right to Vote

States have introduced hundreds of measures to restrict the right to vote. Our democracy must meet these challenges by adopting reforms that promote safe and accessible elections.

Quality Care for Black Americans

Over 10 million people have lost their Medicaid health coverage, with communities of color bearing the brunt of the impact. The federal government has the power to provide incentives and urge these state leaders to take the actions necessary to pause unwinding, and create an automated renewal process.

Fighting for Good Jobs

The NAACP is proud to continue standing in solidarity with our fellow advocates in the labor movement. As we continuously engage in conversations with corporations and Congressional members, one thing is clear - enacting a living, minimum wage nationwide is imperative.

Protecting Our Right to Vote

States have introduced hundreds of measures to restrict the right to vote. Our democracy must meet these challenges by adopting reforms that promote safe and accessible elections.

Quality Care for Black Americans

Over 10 million people have lost their Medicaid health coverage, with communities of color bearing the brunt of the impact. The federal government has the power to provide incentives and urge these state leaders to take the actions necessary to pause unwinding, and create an automated renewal process.

Fighting for Good Jobs

The NAACP is proud to continue standing in solidarity with our fellow advocates in the labor movement. As we continuously engage in conversations with corporations and Congressional members, one thing is clear - enacting a living, minimum wage nationwide is imperative.

Putting Black America First

The future of our democracy lies in America's forgotten corners. That's why the NAACP is working hard to recruit 300K volunteers across the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
- Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, NAACP

Driving Quality of Life through Data

NAACP and Brookings have partnered on The Black Progress Index, a new analysis of the places where Black people are thriving most, as measured through their life expectancy. In the spirit of W.E.B. Du Bois, we're working to provide insight into the local civic actions that can improve life expectancy outcomes.

WE NEED YOU IN THE FIGHT

Each and every NAACP member makes a difference to the complex, ongoing work of advancing racial equity. We have driven the hardest-fought wins for civil rights and social justice - with you by our side, we can accelerate the next milestones for Black Americans.

Join this multigenerational network of activists dismantling structural racism by using your power to take action on the most pressing issues of our time.
Join NAACP today

Years the NAACP has spent fighting against racism and discrimination in communities across the country

We tackle today's toughest challenges

Pause

30% likelihood of a Black person to be stopped without just cause than a white person

65% of Black adults have felt targeted because of their race

675k calls made by NAACP volunteers to Black voters in 2020

10 battleground states reached during 2020 election year

10X more income made by White families than Black families

80% higher mortgage denial rate for Blacks applicants than white applicants

32% of Black students lived in poverty in 2018

45% of Black students attended high-poverty schools in fall 2017

34% of COVID-19 deaths were among non-Hispanic Black people

3x Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes

68% of Black Americans live or have lived within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant over the past several decades

60% of Black Americans live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites

300k young people have participated in the NAACP ACT-SO Achievement Program

40+ years producing top Black talent through ACT-SO

NAACP in your community One NAACP

We are advocates united in the fight to end racial inequality.

All In For Democracy

The NAACP has the largest and most comprehensive civic engagement program for Black voters. We've been organizing and activating thousands of supporters and volunteers. With Super Tuesday behind us, we're all in to protect democracy - but we need your support. Join the fight now - donate today!

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NAACP builds Black political power to end structural racism. Let's put end to race-based discrimination together: become a member, advocate, or donate today.