Luckily civil rights groups have taken action and offer support to victims of racial profiling. They have set up support groups as well as legal teams to help victims fight the embarrassment and harassment of being of a particular race, ethnic group or belong to a certain religious group. Stopping Racial Profiling The problem with racial profiling is it has become a norm in today’s society. We base things on color. Whale Berry wins the Best Actress award and it was not so much presented because of her outstanding performance in the movie ‘Monster’s Ball’.
The press paid more attention that she would be the first African-American woman to win the award. Even Whale compared how she felt to how Sidney Pettier when he was the iris African American man to win in 1963. As the country focused on the Tradition Martin case, the one statement that stood out he most was “this guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something” would George Zimmerman thought the same thing if the person would have been a 40 year old white man, or a 20 year old Hispanic woman?
Although he may claim he was not profiling Tradition the evidence speaks for itself, he Jumped to a conclusion because it was a black male in a hood. Recently, someone having a conversation told how when they go into a local store, tore employees follow them around and the store manager informed the customer they were not longer allowed to wear hoodoos in the store. When asked what happened, the young man stated that the store manager assumed he was a drug dealer because of his tattoos, piercing and his clothing.
It turns out that this young white male is a member of a rock band in town and was unjustly profiled by the store owner because of his appearance. Fair – no, reality – yes!! How do we stop profiling? The first thing we have to do is remember that crime has no color, religious origin or gender. All pedophilia are not white males, not all terrorist are of Arabic descent or Muslim, not all serial killers are white males, not all drug dealers are black males. We as a nation have to take a stand against racial profiling and the only way to do that is to get rid of the racist mentality of our citizens.
Stop looking at the color of one’s skin or mentioning that they were the first black, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, Baptist, Muslim cross-gender person to do something. If the person is an American then they are an American. For us to be the “melting pot” of the world we have lost focus of how we tot the nickname. Conclusion If we continue to Judge a person by the way that they look, the color of their skin, or how they present themselves then we are limiting ourselves in law enforcement.
History has shown that you cannot go by the profile of the “typical” person who commits certain crimes. Law enforcement cannot assume that because a certain crime was committed it must be this type of person or that type of person. The problem is that we as a nation are the worst in Judging a person by the color of their skin. If we could ever get past the “color barrier” we could see that crimes are Discovery or look on CNN Justice news and you will see that not one race, gender or nationality of person commits certain crimes.
Law enforcement is bound by a code of ethics, we are not supposed to look at the color of one’s skin but as life has taught us that when given a choice between a black person, white person, Hispanic person or Muslim person, society will try to convict the one that considered public enemy number one at the time. If you ask black citizens what they think of white police officers they will tell you that they are racist, if you ask white citizen what they think f black officers they will tell you that they will give white people more tickets are arrest than black people.
We have got the change the image of the public when it comes to law enforcement. Law enforcement has to make sure that they do not give into the perception of the public as far as race is concerned. Law enforcement has to hold to the motto “that Justice is blind. ” This is the only way we can end the racial tensions in the nation. As we watch the Tradition Martin case play out in the media and know that we are given much more information than the Jury. Instead of focusing n the color of Martin and Zimmermann skin; ask yourself what would you have done in that situation?
