Body Politics: Making Black Lives Matter

Introduction

African Americans: Official and Unofficial Violence in America by Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University

I. African Americans and Policing: The Unholy Alliance

Perceptions of African American Police Officers in Small Agencies by Charles P. Wilson, Shirley A. Wilson, and Malane Thou

Police Brutality, Over-Policing, and Mass Incarceration in African American Film by Ryan Westerbeck

Black Bodies on the Ground: Policing Disparities in the African American Community—An Analysis of Newsprint From January 1, 2015, Through December 31, 2015 by Michael A. Robinson

Disenfranchising the Enfranchised: Exploring the Relationship Between Felony Disenfranchisement and African American Voter Turnout by Bridgett A. King and Laura Erickson

II. The Question of Justice in an Unequal Society

“I Whitened My Face, That They Might Not Know Me”: Race and Identity in Olaudah Equiano's Slave Narrative by Ronald Paul

The Impact of Federal Sentencing Reforms on African Americans by Marvin D. Free, Jr.

Differential Punishing of African Americans and Whites Who Possess Drugs: A Just Policy or a Continuation of the Past? by Rudolph Alexander, Jr. and Jacquelyn Gyamerah

III. Interpretations and Differential Treatment of Black People

Punished Bodies in Soyinka’s The Bacchae of Euripides and Morrison’s Beloved by Fethia El Hafi

Examination of Racial Disparity in Competency to Stand Trial Between White and African American Retarded Defendants by Taiping Ho

Historical Roots of Chicago’s Contemporary Violence: An Interpretation of Chicago’s Early Sociologists’ Texts on Black Assimilation by Mark S. Fleisher

“A Dream Deferred”: How Discrimination Impacts the American Dream Achievement for African Americans by Joslyn Armstrong, Fiorella L. Carlos Chavez, Julia H. Jones, Shar’Dane Harris, and Gregory J. Harris