Racial Profiling And Racial Discrimination

Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p. 4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in today’s society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots “can be traced to a time in early

Racial profiling is a tool used to pull over blacks and for reasons other than what the traffic stop should be. To the average person who does not experience this will view as a non-issue or not a big deal. But having an experience as a victim of racial profiling can leave a psychological scar for many years, depending on the severity of the traffic stop. The statistics show that these incidents are not random but shows a systematic pattern of law enforcement misconduct rather it’s coming from the individual officer or the police department, it’s clear that racial profiling has a disparate and degrading impact on blacks.

Today’s world we deal with multiple cases of racial profiling. Turn on the television, internet or just the latest talk and you’ll hear about it. "Racial Profiling" describes a discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting certain people for suspicion of crime based on the ones ethnicity, race, origin or religion. The term first came about during the war on drugs in the 1970s and 1980s, when law enforcement were accused of pulling over motorists over their race and then searching their vehicles for illegal substances. There’s a couple different ways on how racial profiling is viewed. As the years progress so does this predicament of racism, labeling and profiling. Most of the profiling that is common today would conclude

Racial Profiling is an act of automatically defining or identifying someone based on their ethnicity. This act was most recognized during the late 1800’s in the U.S. under the Jim Crow law. It was passed in order to segregate whites and the colored in America. It fundamentally made whites superior to all. Though, in 1964 the Civil Rights Act passed stating that anybody of any ethnicity or religion are to be equal and united. However, today this law has never been truly accepted when seeing the statistics of the type of people being stopped by the police. In fact, based on the statistics of the people stopped, there is an ethnic disproportion which shows that the police use racial profiling. Even though innocent people are stopped, the

Many people think racial profiling is a recent problem that occurred in the 80s as the news about African Americans being pulled over for “driving while black” made national headlines. “Racial Profiling,” however, has endured for decades in black communities via discriminatory conduct from Police Department personnel to the criminal justice system. Unfair practices that date back to the 1700s in the United States for people of African descent.

Racial profiling has been and will continue to be a problem in the United States. Many believe that racial profiling is more prevalent in today’s society; however, this issue has been a part of our society since slavery. Moreover, African American males are mostly the targets of racial profiling, especially in larger cities like New York City and Los Angeles. Racial profiling is becoming a huge problem within the police departments. Police officers are conducting more traffic stops on African Americans males than on any other racial group, for the reason that many police officers believe African Americans males are most likely to be engaged in some sort of criminal activity. Thus, racial

The National Institute of Justice (“Racial Profiling”) stated that racial profiling, which is a form of discrimination, racism, and stereotypes is when law enforcement, based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion targets a person for suspicion of crimes. Today people can turn on their television, go online, and even listen to their radios and they will hear about racial profiling. Racial profiling is not anything new and has been going on throughout history; it goes all the way back to slavery. Racial profiling has recently started being recorded, which is why it has become such a huge national issue today, because people can no longer ignore it. This issue is not specific to one race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin. People of many races, religions, ethnicities, or national origins have been affected by racial profiling for years since the start of this country, but one group that has been affected by racial profiling at a high rate is African Americans. The goal of this paper is to analyze this main group that has and still is being affected by racial profiling and acknowledge other groups that are being affected as well.

Clearly identifying and acknowledging the existence of racial profiling is critical to understand its value or lack thereof in society. Racial profiling is not a new practice or term, the origins of racial profiling can be traced back to the days of slavery in America. African-American slaves were viewed as subservient and therefore inferior to whites. This view of African-Americans came with stereotypes such as laziness, ill-mannered, uncontrollable and predisposed to crime and violence. In 1693, Philadelphia courts enacted laws which allowed constables to stop and detain any “negro” seen walking around without their master (Maclin, 1998). The historical context of laws such as those passed in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the United States have a clear nexus to the subject of racial profiling.

July 3rd, 2013, the police stop a young African-American male on his way home from school. When he asked the officers why he had been stopped, they replied, “ If you aren’t hiding anything, you don’t have anything to worry about”. The police officers began interrogating the young man asking questions like where he was coming from, where was he headed and what he did during the day. The young man informed the officers he was coming from school and was headed home. The officer’s then asked to search the young man’s book bag. “ I’m sorry, officers why do you need to search my book bag? Again, the officers replied, “ If you are not hiding anything, you have nothing to worry about.” At the time this young man did not know his rights and should have

Racial profiling is simply, “the unlawful police practice of using race, color, or ethnic background, as the reason for conducting a traffic stop on an individual.” (Michigan Civil Rights Commission) This definition can be extended to any kind of discrimination mainly based on myths and stereotypes towards a certain race or ethnicity. However, the term racial profiling is commonly used when a police officer or any other law enforcer stops, questions, searches or arrests an individual purely on the basis of their race. African Americans or simply blacks have been the major racial group that has suffered much of racial profiling. Much of this is based on the stereotypes against the blacks are perceived as more likely to engage in criminal activities. For instance, in a 2013 Racial Profiling Data from Ferguson Police Department, out of 5384 police stops, 4632 were against blacks. (Ferguson Police Dept. 1) Despite the low population of blacks in U.S. compared to other races, the former continues being subjected to more racial profiling. Racial profiling against African Americans continues to expose the blacks to humiliation and racial injustices, as this paper will expose, thereby calling for the responsible authorities to address and find solutions for the problem.

People love to categorize everything in the world. From organizing socks to classifying species. Therefore, racial profiling exists. Racial profiling is a growing problem in the United States of America. Minorities are being discriminated and put into racial categories by society. In addition, people of color are being looked down upon by privileged whites. Furthermore, whites are discriminating a diverse society by stereotyping and being racist to different cultures that makes the United States of America the freest country in the world. For example, in the article Jim Crow Policing by Bob Herbert it states, “These encounters with the police are degrading and often frightening, and the real number of people harassed is undoubtedly higher than

A review of Nix and Wolf’s (2015) research revealed that officers have more incentive to perform well at their jobs when the public views them in a positive light. Through the use of past research, they found a correlation with their own data that suggested officers feel more solidarity with their community when they are being viewed in a positivistic format. Further expanding upon the previous statement, they examined another article suggesting that negative annotations toward the police created an “us versus them” kind of mentality within officers that causes strain between the populace and the law. As such, it is evident from this research that organizational justice is important to an officer’s sense of self-legitimacy, suggesting that

It is controversial that since King’s speech things have prospered and some stayed the same. In the past years, there have been issues like police brutality and racial profiling that show that nothing has changed. The black and white people can argue that racism and segregation haven’t gone away. If everyone stopped judging others according to their race, the world would be a better place. The government needs to do more like having laws that say ask questions before shooting. Even though MLK speech helped us to get somewhere in today’s society, the black people still go through racial profiling and segregation.

Imagine walking down the street one day with your friends, minding your own business when a police car pulls up next to you. As the car comes to a stop, a police officer rushes out with a gun in hand pointed at you. You are thrown to the ground, pinned under the officer, questioning what you did wrong. As you look around for help you realize that you have become the next victim of racial profiling. Racial profiling is the use of race or ethnic background to suspect someone of committing an offence. This problem has been going on for centuries and not only needs to be recognized, but also needs to be solved. Racial profiling in the United States must be addressed through an examination

An accurate definition of racial profiling must include discriminatory omissions on the part of the law enforcement as well as racially discriminatory acts. The failure of the enforcement to act on the behalf of a minority is unconstitutional but has been happening even farther back than the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.The lynchings of African Americans that occurred during this time are a horrific example.Many “southern sheriffs sat idly by while racist organization, such as the Ku Klux Klan, terrorized African Americans. At times, the sheriffs would even release black suspects to the lynch mobs.” 1 A more recent example of this discriminatory omissions is seen with an African American man in Maryland. This man moved into a predominantly white community and faced harassment and property damage. The local police failed to respond to his complaints and eventually arrested him for shooting a gun into the air. His reason for