Summary Of The Story 'Smoke' By Walter Mosley

In Walter Mosley’s story “Smoke” the police are depicted as being completely uncaring about issues in African American neighborhoods. This reflects the real life relationship between African American communities and police at that time period. In the time period the book was set in it was very common for police to ignore calls coming in from predominantly African American or other minority neighborhoods and this discrimination is still present even today. The discrimination created a need for the people in these neighborhoods to enforce the law how they saw fit and take care of most issues “in-house,” so to speak. This created a need for vigilante type characters such as the protagonist from “Smoke” Easy Rawlins. These characters were good, up-standing people that wanted to see justice served.

“Smoke” was written in the early 2000’s but the issue of police neglect extends back much farther through the years. The media has
England has had trouble with equality in the policing of laws, especially in London. Although many say it failed, London police instituted a mandatory anti-racism training for its officers (Webbe). A famous comedian, George Carlin, once said that there are two attributes that should be required for a police officer; intelligence and decency. Hiring someone onto the police force that needs anti-racism training may not be a wise decision especially if the police force is already experiencing race related issues. Even hiring police officers that are minorities doesn’t seem to help relive this problem. In Hyattsville, Maryland two African American officers were targeted by their own department after they spoke up about brutality and discrimination against minorities that they had witnessed (Constant). Even police that try to make a difference in the relationship between minorities and police can be put at