Article Analysis Essay on Death in Black and White

The Article Death in Black and White, offers a comprehensive discussion regarding the manner in which the white privilege can blind people from knowing the truth and therefore stopping them from working together for a common goal. From the description provided by the article, the white privilege just means the advantages enjoyed by the white people in the western nations. Such benefits are usually beyond what is commonly experienced by the non-white people under the same social, political and economic circumstances. The article provides a unique example and a reflection of the manner in which the American society operates and functions, and further demonstrates the way in which various individuals and groups relate and interact with one another.

According to the article, the white Americans always struggle to understand the black population. Over many decades, the members of the black community have been subjected to various social injustices such as the extrajudicial killings or murder by the police, as well inequality when it comes to the subjection of individuals to criminal justice systems. The article mentions about the death of two black men by the names Alton B. Sterling and Philando Castile who died at the hands of the police in a terrible Dallas attack. According to the majority of the white people, the black lives do not matter. Instead, they go by the slogan, All Lives Matter. The non-violent protests by the members of the black community are often perceived as something that must be met with violence. In such incidences, the white people usually view the deaths of blacks as instigated or contributed by the black folks themselves, and mostly because the victims are criminals. Instead, the article provides an excellent understanding as to why the black people engage in such peaceful and non-violent protests. Fundamentally, the black people protest to one another, particularly to the world that largely refuses to listen to their grievances and acknowledge them as privileged just like the white population.

The article further unmasks the perception and the view of the white population towards the killings and the murder of the black community. Because they are privileged to be whites, they cannot agree with anything that concerns Black's life, because it does not matter. Everyone can see it in videos or any other media, but they still insist that the cameras do not tell the whole story or rather the stories told are fabricated. It is based on the fact that that tradition is inculcated into them from the time they are born. They are provided with a pair of binoculars that observes the black life from a distance, and never with the aspect of intimacy. These binoculars are the white privileges and status, regardless of their class. However, from the article, we get to understand that the greatest opportunity that exists for the white people is when a person gets stopped by a police and not end up dead when the encounter is over.

Other than being privilege and status, these binoculars are also stories, which integrate the evil stories, biased stories, and disturbing stories. In other words, white is blindfolded and told to view the black people from the perspective of being lazy, dumb, slick, and evil folks who cannot be helped by good American learning institutions and even God himself. So what is the cause of the problem? As discussed in the article, the problem is that the white people do not want to understand and know anything different from what they think they know. It is based on the fact that the idea of Black Lives Matter does not concern them in any way. While it is evident that few victims suffered in the case described in the article, the social contexts in which the incident occurred was analogous to those that have recently taken place other parts of the United States. A major dramatic example of this was the shooting at the historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Notably, the incident shook the nation thereby leaving the majority of people to reflect the state of American race relations and other related systems. Nine people including Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the pastor and the state senator from South Carolina were murdered, an incident termed as racially instigated. Other victims of similar events include Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Ousmane Zongo, Sean Bell, Tamon Robinson, and Kimani Gray.

Even when such murders are evident and known by everyone, no justices are served for the victims or their relatives left behind. For many decades now, the majority of the members of black communities in the United States have lived with a lot of perturbation about the police brutality, and the safety of their lives. Fascinatingly, the whites still demand the Supreme Court give them back things that were taken from them such as more educational opportunities despite dominating such sectors, and better access to jobs in police forces and fire departments which they still dominate. Undeniably, the whiteness, in this case, has become a burden too heavy for them to carry. The article has succeeded to unmask the fact and idea that whiteness is blindness.