Straight Outta Compton directed by F. Gary Gray was had many and varied themes: police brutality, censorship, brotherhood, HIV/AIDS awareness, and the realities the rappers chronicle through their lyrics. Each of the people within the group had their backstories, and I think that the film did a good job of contextualizing each of the young men.
Moreover, the film did a fantastic job of implementing the issue of police brutality that was deeply entrenched within society and was coming to the forefront in the 1980s. There was one scene where Ice Cube, one of the rappers was violently searched in front of his family for simply walking home. In another scene, the rappers are on break and police make them lay on the pavement and search them in a dehumanizing way.
Sadly, police brutality is still a systemic problem that permeates into today’s world decades later. By powerfully showing the issue of police brutality, I thought more on this issue. I also reflected on the United States prison system and criminal laws on a broader level.
This past winter break, while talking to my father about police brutality, one of the comments he made was that he finds the role of accessible video cameras very important, with something to the effect of “This has been a pertinent issue for a long time: racial profiling, police brutality, and even harsh sentencing imposed upon marginalized populations. As a criminal defense attorney there were definitely times I felt powerless defending my clients against the system. However, I think there is a lot of potential with people taking notice nowadays and people videotaping these incidents for themselves.”
In my eyes, there is a lot of potential in the movements that have arisen as a reaction to police brutality. #blacklivesmatter is one of the prominent, strong and vast movements that can not be ignored. Like many times in history, leaders within the movement realizes that there needs to be a sense of urgency to influence change, a very difficult task in a system that enforces itself.
Another issue we spoke about was the cradle to prison pipeline, in which marginalized communities are at a higher risk of facing imprisonment, which leads them from the cradle straight into prison. Even within prison there are pertinent issues that go unnoticed: solitary confinement, (which is sometimes used as punishment for small infractions and can fall under the category of “cruel and unusual punishment”), exploitative prison labor, poor handling of prisoners with mental health issues, and the list goes on. Our current prison system functions on the presumption that prison is a form of punishment as opposed to a form of rehabilitation. By making that assumption we are restricting society from potentially lowering recidivism rates which could benefit the public welfare substantially.
I was struck by this notion that the visibility of these issues has risen and fallen. I can not help but wonder how many people in the past have been subjected to the full force of the law for simply existing, their names that have been forgotten, and the fact that they will never see justice (police departments are not required to report deaths and statistics only represent estimates). I will never forget that this is a problem that persists today despite growing public knowledge, and I will always remember the names that have been subject to a racist system. It is absolutely frightening to know that basic fundamental rights only apply to a certain demographic.
The lyrics that N.W.A rapped capture an issue that was rampant in the 1980s, and is clearly still prominent today. The release of this film comes at a time when there is a growing consciousness to the issue of police brutality, which provided for a powerful film.
Hi Julissa,
Though I do agree that police brutality is a trending issue, and I also did not watch Straight Outta Compton, I don’t think it always paints the best picture just hearing one side. Of course, since we’re not policemen, we consider ourselves on the “victim” side, and we only see how much pain is incurred by the victim. And when the police officer is on trial, oftentimes his/her defense of “fearing for his/her life” is seen as ridiculous to the general public, when it is actually a real fear.
I worked in the Labor Relations Department for the New York Police Department and I had many talks about the issue of police brutality, and I learned a lot about the law as well as the media’s occasional distortion of the truth, since it’s such a hot topic. Some people like to act rude to provoke officers, or simply because they don’t respect the authority of the officer, and they don’t realize that by doing so, officers do have a right to make the person comply.
I could go on and on about this, but I just wanted to comment that although Straight Outta Compton (I hear) has very great reviews, I’m sure it’s not referring to all the police in the U.S. and it’s not always black and white (like he’s either wrong or he’s right). There are sooooo many great police officers who do their job very well, so I hope you still have some faith in our system.
Dear Alice,
I appreciate your reply, but I think it really misses some of the points I tried to make and misconstrues the others. First, police brutality is by no means a “trending issue” it is a reality that marginalized populations have to live with every day. Many people walk around in fear every day and deeming it a “trend” really denigrates the experiences of thousands. While I did address the issue of police brutality, I also extended it to the nature and structure of the criminal justice system as a whole. I never said that all police were corrupt, but police brutality a systemic problem across the United States, which is a part of why the #Blacklivesmatter movement has resonated with so many.
Though you’ve heard of people being rude, being rude isn’t necessarily breaking a law, and the laws in this country are in place to defend people’s right to say whatever they want with only a few minimal restrictions.
I have studied laws as well and one important law in the Constitution guarantees due process to every citizen of the United States. This tries to inject fairness and objectivity into the criminal justice system and ensure equal protection under the law. By murdering individuals before they get their day in court, or assuming someone is guilty because they are “rude,” fundamental rights are infringed upon. I do not remember anything in a statute, law or the constitution that encourages punishment for being “rude.” However rude one may be, there ought to be a presumption of innocence in place, and it seems that this presumption only applies to certain people.
A lot of people that were murdered were also unarmed. In fact, 102 black unarmed people were killed by police just this past year (the number may be higher, this is just an estimate from mappingpoliceviolence.org). Regardless, 102 is a large number of people, especially when you compare it to the deaths of unarmed people of other races. It is hard to make the argument that someone is “fearing for their life” when the alleged perpetrator does not have the means to hurt the other person. Moreover, it is hard to argue that it is not a systemic problem when the statistics support this idea.
I think there are also other relevant systemic problems in terms of our justice system along with police brutality, which I mentioned in my blog post. Though it is important to see the other side, I focused on this specific side because it is what the movie represented, what resonated with me, and a perspective that is often ignored on an institutional level.