Social Psychology Research Paper.

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Social Psychology Research Paper.

Social Psychology Research Paper.

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Trayvon Martin: Racial Profiling, Black Male Stigma, and Social Work Practice

Martell Lee Teasley, Jerome H. Schiele, Charles Adams, and Nathern S. Okilwa

To address a critical gap in the social work literature, this article examines the deleterious ef- fects of racial profiling as it pertains to police targeting of male African Americans. The authors use the Trayvon Martin court case to exemplify how racial profiling and black male stigma help perpetuate social inequality and injustice for black men. A racism-centered per- spective is examined historically and contemporarily as a theoretical approach to under- standing the role that race plays in social injustice through racial profiling. Implications for social work research design and practice aimed at increasing the social work knowledge base on racial profiling are discussed. The authors call for attention and advocacy by major social work organizations in the reduction of black male stigma and racial profiling. Social Psychology Research Paper.

KEYWORDS: black men; black male stigma; critical race theory; racial profiling; racism-centered perspective

The August 2012 shooting of TrayvonMartin and subsequent acquittal of GeorgeZimmerman sent shock waves through America, and once again elevated race and racism as major topics for mass media debates in communities. Trayvon was a 17-year-old black high school stu- dent at the time of his shooting. While walking down the street after purchasing a bag of Skittles (candy) and a soft drink from a local convenience store, in a Sanford, Florida, neighborhood, he was pursued by an armed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. According to police reports, the decision to followMartin was based on Zimmer- man’s notion that Martin was “up to no good.” As a neighborhood watchman, Zimmerman called the local police who advised him to discontinue his pur- suit in following Trayvon Martin. Ignoring the in- structions from local police, Zimmerman ended up fatally wounding the unarmed Martin and was charged with first degree murder. His acquittal led to local, state, and national protests and became a tip- ping point in our national dialogue on the racial pro- filing of black men. Social Psychology Research Paper.

Racial profiling is an act of injustice that uses race as the foundation for shaping perceptions and beha- viors associated with defining who is and which groups are designated as “criminal” (Moore, 2015). This definitional system can disadvantage individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups, and has been pervasively applied to stigmatize, stereotype, and target

young black men (Weatherspoon, 2004). According to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) statistics, in 2014 black male adolescents ages 18 to 19 “were more than 10 times likely to be in state or federal prison than whites” (Carson, 2015, p. 15). For all age groups, black male individuals are arrested and have the highest rate of imprisonment in state and federal facilities. This rate is 3.8 to 10.5 times more than the rate for white men and 1.4 to 3.1 times more than the rate for Hispanic men (Carson, 2015). Many contend that a primary factor explaining this precipitous incarceration rate, known as hyperincarceration, is the practice of racial profiling (Moore, 2015).

Although racial profiling of young black men has received much attention in the criminal justice and criminology literature, little attention has been devoted to the topic in social work literature, which diminishes social work’s ability to address this problem in several ways. First, the lack of focus leaves the social work community without a sufficient knowledge base needed to develop, evaluate, and apply evidence-based interventions to alleviate and eliminate the social prob- lem of racial profiling. Thus, although much is written on the racial profiling of black men, the literature could be significantly enhanced by infusing the distinc- tive yet diverse frameworks that guide social work practice. Second, the social work profession misses the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate problems within the criminal justice system in relation to black men and their overrepresentation. Explaining and preventing

doi: 10.1093/sw/swx049 © 2017 National Association of Social Workers 37Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sw/article-abstract/63/1/37/4607902 by Adam Ellsworth, Adam Ellsworth on 30 December 2017

the disproportionate arrest and conviction rates of black men should be a primary thrust of contemporary social work research and practice. Finally, a focus on racial profiling can help social work professionals rely more heavily on a racism-centered perspective of understanding and reducing the social problems expe- rienced by black people, other marginalized racial and ethnic groups, and specifically black men.

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