State Violence

State violence - State violence is violence committed by or sanctioned by the government. African Americans and other people of color are burdened by a presumption of guilt and dangerousness that increases their risk of being injured or killed in an encounter with state officials such as police, and enables laws that protect police officers who kill civilians from punishment by assigning fault to the victims. Additionally, the government has subjected Black people to other, more covert forms of violence; for example, from the 1920s to the 1970s, state laws enabled and encouraged medical professionals to sterilize poor, Southern Black women without their knowledge or consent, thus stripping away their ability and right to have children. Another example of state violence is the millions of Native American people were forcibly removed from their lands by the United States government before being killed by genocide or forced into unjust living conditions. A final example includes immigrants and refugee communities, often people of color, who flee their home countries to escape violence, only to face prejudice when they arrive in the U.S. See EJI’s article about The Presumption of Dangerousness Behind Police Abuse of Black People as well as the above articles for more information.

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