Racial Profiling Essay Examples

What is Racial Profiling

Racial profiling has become a huge major problem in the United States it causes mistrust against other races. It brings a notion where you’re described as doing a particular crime based on your race alone and it had put many lives in jeopardy. It’s a demonstration of treachery that utilizes race as the establishment for assuming observations and practices related with characterizing who is and which individuals who are assigned as a criminal to society (Moore 2015).

As for example the trayvon vs Zimmerman incident. George Zimmerman (the neighborhood watch) suspected treyvon (the victim) was up to no good based of the color of his skin and his choice of clothing which provoked Zimmerman to defend his neighborhood just because he thought trayvon was going to rob somebody. So therefore racism needs to be stop at home from parents promoting it towards children having them believe different group of races can’t be trusted or affiliated with. That’s the only cure that will fade away generations to come.

Mainly African Americans are the main minorities in the United States as far as discrimination. Discrimination often occurs among us when African Americans are refused jobs constantly based of our racial background and where we are from. (Feagin and Eckberg 11). This has a negative impact of minorities because it discourages the young youth striving their education as much as possible. Although the body of discrimination is worldwide, its mainly based on race, ethnicity, weight, sex, sexual appearance, class status, careers, and furthermore in physical appearance (Birzer and Ellis 2003).

It is shown that African American Professionals experienced discrimination inside unions of a constructor contractor and have trouble negotiating to contract and bidding deals in order to start a construction project. But most African Americans experienced poor service inside of restaurants such as getting served food before everybody else and/or receiving low-grade rotten appetizers. Separation results from profound biases held by people and in some cases is discovered all the more essential as institutional and financial segregation and a example of this is Africans Americans paid about on a average of 53% more on a car than a white American (Ayres 1991).

Racial Profiling and Police Use of Force

Racial profiling has been practiced by law enforcement for a long time and people of color, whether black or Mexican, always tend to fall victim to this. In most cases, white people are committing more crimes than African Americans, but the difference is that African Americans are punished way more severely than white people are. This is also the case because African Americans tend to be pulled over more often than white people do. The fact that African Americans were being incarcerated at such a high rate began to raise questions for many African Americans; one of whom was Kenneth Meeks.

Meeks is the author of a book called “Driving while Black”. One question that she tackled in her book was, “Do African Americans actually commit more crimes than other races?” or is there racism and injustice amongst law enforcement in the U.S. justice system? She began her answer by discussing the United States v. Martinez-Fuerte case of 2011. This case began with a Hispanic man who was driving near the border of California and Mexico when he was stopped by the American Border Patrol. Simply based on his ethnicity, the police proceeded to ask him several questions and search his car.

This man, was not an illegal immigrant so he felt like his Fourth Amendment right was being stripped from him because he was clearly stopped and interrogated because of his Mexican ancestry. The court ruled that the border patrol appropriately stopped him and that the fourth amendment was not violated during this search. They also said that the border patrol was simply doing its job in keeping undocumented immigrants out of the country and border patrol can lawfully search anyone that they suspect is crossing illegally.

There is a vast disparity amongst African Americans and white people that are incarcerated. There are typically tens of thousands more African Americans in jail than white people and this can be backed up by data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), at the end of 2016, federal and state prisons locked up about 486,900 inmates who were black and 439,800 who were white.

The difference is almost 47,100, but the same survey shows at the end of 2009, there were 584,800 blacks and 490,000 whites with a difference of almost 94,800. The difference between 2009 and 2016 saw a 17% decrease in the number of black inmates during that span, which was greater than the 10% decrease in the number of white inmates. These statistics show that African Americans are evidently being incarcerated at a much higher rate than white people, but it seems like progress is being made as there was a larger decrease of African

Americans in jail vs the decrease of white people in jail from 2009 to 2016

African Americans and police often have very different views regarding racial profiling. These notions that racial profiling occurs is a view that African Americans are all too aware of. After the incidents in Ferguson and Baltimore, where African Americans were unjustifiably killed by law enforcement, the issue of racial bias was evident to America and everyone saw how much of a different race can play in the way law enforcement assesses a situation. According to the New York Times, among US states, California has the highest racial profiling rate when it comes to police officers pulling over African Americans for traffic violations.

If the law enforcement knows the driver is African American they become very cautious and proceed very carefully. If they have the slightest amount of suspicion or doubt, they call for backup immediately. Law enforcement tends to take discrimination even further by unrightfully searching the driver and their car because they have reasonable suspicion based on the color of the driver’s skin. However, determining whether or not something is racial profiling is extremely difficult to gauge because there is sometimes increased crime rates in African American neighborhoods which makes it hard to determine whether there was racial profiling or the police simply know they’re in an area with a high crime rate and are on edge.

The Pro’s of Racial Profiling

Racial profiling should be legalized. Racial profiling should be allowed because it can be very helpful when looking for bad guys. Also it can help keep the crime rates down, by keeping an eye on the ones that look strange. If racial Profiling is legalized then
Racial Profiling can help police with capturing criminals by knowing the statistics about normal car thieves, serial killers, and with other crimes.

If you know this then you can narrow down the killer from say 1 million people to maybe 100 people. Race is not the only limiting factor that is being targeted religious groups is being labeled as well. Since 9-11 people associate terrorism with the Muslims or Arab’s. Since we know this fact that they attacked us once everyone can assume that they will do it more than once. If you are Catholic you are more than likely to tell the truth all the time because that is part of your religion and you have to tell the truth all the time. So these people are not suspected of doing terrible things. Which according to statistics from Christopher Dickey’s Kill Zone in 2012, 82 percent of the nation’s gun owners are white most of them live outside metropolitan areas. 72 percent of gun-homicide victims are black or Hispanic, and live and die in the cities; many of the homicides are gang related. (Dickey)

After 9-11 the United States passed the Patriot Act, where if the government thinks that you are involved with some sort of interesting acts. Then the FBI would be allowed to use wiretapping and other methods to find out if you are actually a terrorist. Several people think that this is a violation of their privacy. If you are not doing anything wrong then what do we have to hide? We are not terrorists everyone should be checked on every once in a while. Why should the people worry about who is going to look at all our emails, phone calls, and where we spend our time? The only people who read all of this is the Federal Government what are they going to say? The police are in plain clothes trying to find the various criminals around the major cities, this should not worry us. (Dickey)

Racial Bias in the Judicial System

Recent events involving law enforcement officers and the Black communities has many questioning police conduct, especially due to the recent shootings of unarmed Blacks all across the United States. You cannot rationally discuss the issues of race within the judicial system without looking back at history and why the issue of race is not all but gone. The United States has an infamous history of slavery, the Jim Crow laws, and many other racially based inequalities that make it apparent that race plays an important factor in many parts of the judicial system.

The purpose of this paper is to recognize what role race plays within the judicial system and whether racial biases exist. On April 27, 2015, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, experienced serious unrest after Freddie Gray’s funeral. Gray, a 25-year-old Black male, suffered a spinal cord injury and crushed voice box while in Baltimore city police custody on April 12; he died on April 19. Gray’s death capped more than 3 years of national and international attention turned to homicides of unarmed Black males in the United States: Trayvon Martin (a 17-year-old shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by a neighborhood self-appointed watchman in February 2012), Eric Garner (a 43-year-old who died in July 2014 due to a choke hold by a Staten Island New York City police officer), Michael Brown (an 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in August 2014), Tamir Rice (a 12 year-old who was shot and killed seconds after a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer approached him in November 2014), and Walter Scott (a 50-year-old who was fatally shot in the back as he ran from a North Charleston, South Carolina, police officer on April 4, 2015), and others (Pratt-Harris, Sinclair and Bragg).

When looking at the lethal actions taken in these cases you see the bias actions taken by the police officers due to the suspects being African American and having some sort of criminal background that they believe constitutes lethal actions to be taken upon encountering the suspects.

Most of the men had a violent criminal history which the officers and their legal counsel used to justify the use of deadly force, but what about the 12 year old who was outside playing innocently with a water gun? Why was he shot? Why would an officer assume a child puts him in danger? These are all questions that we will never know the answers to, but what we do know the answer to is the question of was there justice for the victims and their families, and the answer is a resounding No. There was no justice the officers are covered and protected by the laws of our nation. In a nation where law enforcement and their actions are seen to be correct no matter what the incident is there can be no justice for the innocently slain.

Conclusion

Being born in America and never traveling to my home land i never turned into a super religious guy however i am a follower of allah and believer in what allah says and will teach me. In a simple coffee shop I was getting a coffee and police come through the door and start talking to me asking to see inside of my car and what im doing. After explaining my intentions they ask to search my car and without anything to hide i refused cause why would they need too.

An elderly African American man ran outside to where i was at my car with the officers and screamed “There’s the arabic pig with the drugs sir” immediately i was disgusted with actions of society and everything associated with it. Again the cop asks to search my car and this time i allow it because it has gone from something stupid to something serious. Obviously they find nothing and i continued with my day still oblivious to why that man would believe i had anything on me. Even though i didn’t have anything on me the cops could have planted something and i would of been screwed with further punishments ahead of me. All because this man had something wrong with my religion and name. Racial profiling is a huge risk for people’s lives and endangerment because one false claim could cause a rippling effect on their futures.

The authorities are mainly held responsible for racial discrimination carried out in cities, however, the media’s influence on the matter only complicates the situation. Racial profiling can have an effect from labeling, media propaganda, the disparency of races questioned at traffic stops, and even the selective singling out of a particular race. The outcomes of these acts of discrimination verily outdo the pros. The fear within the authorities of specific races can lead to outcomes of racial profiling to be clearly displayed. Racial Profiling can see many inopportune actions executed by the authorities, influenced by tension, fear, or human error.