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Project 3 Finaldraft
Project 3 Finaldraft
ESL 33B
Dr. Carlisi
28 November 2017
Thesis Statement
Racial discrimination and police brutality led to the Watts Riots and still exist today, so they
Detailed Outline
I. Introduction
A. The Watts Riots caused huge damage to the LA city and warned the nation that Blacks
1. History tells us that the Watts Riots caused 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,952 arrests
damage(History.com).
2. The Watts Riots gave the nation a warning that Blacks couldnt stand racial
B. Thesis: Racial discrimination and police brutality led to the Watts Riots and still exist
today, so they need to be addressed in order to improve Black lives in the U.S.
II. The main underlying forces of the Watts Riots are racial discrimination and police
brutality.
A. The three primary aspects of racial discrimination against Blacks are basic living,
1. Racial discrimination against Blacks in basic living mainly consisted of these four
b. Unfriendly white store owners in Watts raised the price of goods and sold low
c. Only 13% of the homes have been built since 1939the rest are decaying and
dilapidated (Rothman)
poor treatment.
schools funded at rates many times lower than those serving whites and were
a. A study found that Whites got 36% more callbacks than Blacks after the
interview (Morris).
James).
B. Another significant reason for Watts Riots is police brutality towards Black.
1. During 1960s, LAPD was thought of as being particularly brutal in the relationship
2. Black people were abused and treated violently by some white polices.
III. Racial discrimination and police brutality still exist today and have negative influence
toward black.
Palmdale (Gazzar).
3. The wealth gap between whites and blacks is still huge (Katel).
4. There are less African-Americans earn college degrees compared with whites
(Katel).
5. According to table 2, unemployment rate of black is still much higher than white
2. High percentage of Blacks stopped and frisked by police compared with their
IV. Avoiding racial discrimination and police brutality will help to improve black lives in
the U.S.
1. Before the riots, Watts had been ignored by the whites, which triggered the Riots
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(Kreitner).
B. Being Treated equally and friendly will let black feel accepted by the nation and help
V. Conclusion
The main reasons of the Watts Riots should be cleared and people should keep paying
attention to the present situations of the Blacks in order to let them feel concerned by
the nation as well as help the Blacks to gradually solve the problems so they could live
Introduction
Although it was fifty-two years ago that the Watts Riots erupted, we still need to pay attention to
it. Every riot always brings varying degrees of damage. People die, get injured, and numbers of
rioters would arrest (History.com). The blocks and buildings might be destroyed as well as the
environment. In addition, it also causes economic losses. Therefore, it is important to find out the
underlying causes which lead to the riots. For the Watts Riots, the main reasons were racial
discrimination and police brutality. For racial discrimination, it exists in many aspects, such as
basic living, education, and employment. For example, when it comes to employment
discrimination, it shows that blacks has less opportunity to get the job (Morris); blacks need to
overcome difficulties to get the similar achievement as their white counterparts (Khosrovani &
James); blacks income is much lower than whites (Katz & Stern). In order to avoid the riots
happens again, it is important to take action to solve these problems and keep the solution
activities continuously working and upgraded with better ways. Unfortunately, there are still
many problems have not be well solved and some solution activities have been quit in the half
way and ignored again. Therefore, it is very important to keep paying attention to these problems
and keep working on or finding out good solutions to solve these problems in order to prevent
the similar riots. In this case, it will also have benefit to create a good life to Blacks in the U.S.
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Police brutality as a stubborn problem still exists today, even though 52 years past from the
Watts Riots and the society pays much attention to this issue. The conflicts between Police and
African-Americans doesnt reduce markedly. On the one hand, high range of black men were
shot to death by police (Katel). The Guardians investigation, titled The Counted posts out a
group of data give evidence of the rate of people of different races that were killed by police.
According to Fig.1, 7.13% of blacks were killed by police while the percentage of Whites were
only 2.91%, which reveals that Blacks were more likely to be shot by police compare to the
white.
Fig.1. The rate of people of different race that killed by police, the guardian, theguardian.com, 31 Dec 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men
On the other hand, high percentage of Blacks stopped and frisked by police compared with their
population to the population of the whole city (Katel). According to Chicago stop-and-frisk data,
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no matter in New York City or Chicago, percentage of black people stopped by police are even
much more than the percentage of black population (see fig.2.), which indicated that black is
more likely be stopped by police and it also reflects that police brutality and unfair treatment
Fig.2. Percentage of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics stopped and frisked in Chicago and New
library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2016010800.
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Works Cited
Bennett, Aronte Marie, et al. "Shopping While Nonwhite: Racial Discrimination among Minority
Consumers." Journal of Consumer Affairs, vol. 49, no. 2, Summer2015, pp. 328-355.
EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/joca.12060.
Carter, Richard. "Recalling Watts: The Mother of All Urban Uprisings." New York Amsterdam
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ph&AN=1108532&site=ehost-live.
Edy, Jill A. Watts Riots of 1965. Encyclopdia Britannica, Encyclopdia Britannica, inc., 24
Flournoy, Angela. Watts 1965: Riot or revolt? Los Angeles Times, 15 Aug 2015,
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0816-flournoy-watts-riot-or-revolt-20150816-
Gazzar, Brenda. Revisiting the Watts riots 50 years later: the explosion was almost
http://www.dailynews.com/2015/08/08/revisiting-the-watts-riots-50-years-later-the-
Hammond, Linda. Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education. Brookings, 1 Mar 1998,
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unequal-opportunity-race-and-education/. Accessed 27
Dec. 2017.
History.com Staff. Watts Riot begins. Watts Riot begins, A+E Networks, 2010,
library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2016010800.
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ph&AN=70060664&site=ehost-live.
Kreitner, Richard. "Its the Racism, Stupid." Nation, vol. 299, no. 11, 15 Sept. 2014, p.8.
EBSCOhost,
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Michael B. Katz and Mark J. Stern. Beyond Discrimination: Understanding African American
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/beyond-discrimination-understanding-african-
Morris, Tatiana. Q&A: Anti-black hiring discrimination hasn't improved in 25 years. What can
2017.
Rothman, Lily. "50 Years After Watts: The Causes of a Riot." Time.Com, 12 Aug. 2015.
EBSCOhost,
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ph&AN=108874275&site=ehost-live.
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Swaine Jon, Laughland Oliver, Lartey Jamiles and McCarthy Ciara. Young black men killed by
US police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths, the guardian, 31 Dec 2015,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-
Table A-2. Employment Status of the Civilian Population by Race, Sex, and Age. U.S. Bureau