Essay on Racial Profiling

Free Racial Profiling papers

Racialization Of Poverty
African Americans continue to have high levels of poverty compared to European Americans. What are the causes of these problems, and what are some possible remedies for the future? How are African American women faced with even more discrimination than African American men? There's an old saying tha

Racism
"Attack the Source" "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" (Martin Luther King Jr.) Throughout American History, racism has always been a major conflict. Racism is

“We must ensure that stereotypes and prejudice, whether consciously or unconsciously, do not creep into the work we do”

- Attorney General Janet Reno

What is race? In the colonial era, Western ideologies helped to build a dominant European society. The rise of the West had a dramatic effect on the rest of the world. A new Capitalist economy was adopted. It operated on the basis of oppression. Prior to this time, races did not exist. Yet, as the white man came into power, his superiority was enforced by a set of standards, a hierarchy of the races to which white Eurocentrism was placed above all and closest to God. Consequentially, blacks were valued below all others. It has taken years of struggle for the black community to be acknowledged as equal by the state. Yet, when the topic of racial profiling is called into question, it is obvious that those same racist Western ideologies of the past are very much a part of the present.

Racial stereotypes have lead to the false belief that racial minorities are more likely to be trafficking drugs. Officers have targeted blacks and Latinos for traffic stops in hopes of discovering contraband in the course of the stop. The statistics are very blatant; a survey of state police traffic stops on the New Jersey turnpike showed that while blacks make up only 13.5 percent of the drivers in the area, they constitute 46.2 percent of people stopped. In Maryland, blacks make up 75 percent of all stops while only 17.5 percent of all motorists are black. When surveyed in Maryland, the rate of which blacks and whites were found to have drugs in their vehicles was about equal (about 28 percent).

This false belief that blacks and Latinos are more likely to be carrying drugs and weapons has a negative effect on the nation as a whole. The spread of these beliefs into the media has a direct link with the perpetuation of unjust stereotyping. As Al Sharpton said, "Racial profiling is the modern term for segregation."

What gives our legal system the right to label and accuse certain racial groups? The problem with law is that man made it. Therefore, it has bias. However, there are those certain inalienable rights to which we all are entitled to as citizens of the United States....