Racial Profiling

Drug dealers are mostly Black and Mexican, Muslims are terrorists, and Hispanics are all gang members. These are things you might hear people who use racial profiling say. Racial profiling is used by police and people of authority to narrow down and target specific groups of people. This basically means that if a person is black, they are automatically assumed to be at a higher risk of having drugs then a white person. A police officer would more likely arrest a Muslim than a white person for suspicious behavior. Basically, people are judged unfairly and rights are compromised when racial profiling is used. There is no place for racial profiling in America.

Some of the main types of profiling include singling out a person of a certain race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality. This becomes a problem when police use a person’s appearance, rather than actual evidence, to pull them over or arrest them. Cases of racial profiling can be found all over the place. Some officers even come up with slang for racial profiling. Lines like DWB or “Driving While Black” are common phrases you may hear. Racial profiling is common, weather it’s right or not.

Racal profiling was already a problem before 9/11, but after the attacks, it has gotten even worse. Muslims are routinely stopped at airports, and while driving in their cars. It is not fair to innocent Muslims that they should be singled out due to the action of a few extremists. The media does not help their case either. Phrases such as “the war on terror” or “the war on drugs” fuel emotion to stop the wrongdoing. People then jump to conclusions on who to blame for the problem. It is easy to blame a race or group for a problem rather than try to target the root of it. This is why profiling is wrong, and must be stopped.

Some statistics try to clam that profiling is right, and that it helps catch more criminals. The truth is there is no sure way to tell. In a 1996 Supreme Court decision, they allowed police to stop motorists and search their vehicles if they believe trafficking illegal drugs or weapons is in progress. Since more blacks and minorities were stopped, they of course are going to have a higher percentage of guilty cases. If police stopped and searched twice as many white people, the number of white people arrested would obviously go up. Although most terrorists are Muslims, it is a mistake to say they all are. If you narrowed your search of terrorists down to only Muslims, that would blind you to the possibility of a person of a different race committing a terrorist act. This is why results are unreliable. All in all, racial profiling is not proven to be effective.

Although profiling can is mainly used for crimes such as drug dealing, and terrorism, it is also used on a smaller scale. In a recent case, Wal-Mart was the perpetrator. According to the article “GAF (a roofing company) has been spending about $50,000 a year on gift cards for employees at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 11110 Causeway Blvd. in Brandon. For years GAF sent a white, female administrator to buy them without incident. This time, when