Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling Racial Profiling is wrong, and stereotyping certain races as having a greater propensity to commit crimes should be prohibited.
Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11 there have been an increase in the willingness to condone law enforcement and security actions based primarily on the color of ones’ skin. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it has been the official policy of the United States government to stop, interrogate, and detain individuals without criminal charges on the basis of their national origin, ethnicity and religion. Thus, the term racial profiling was coined. Society, however, has been ignorant to the true meaning of racial profiling and has sometimes misinterpreted the government’s continuous attempts to keep the society safe. It is important for the society; especially the group affected most, in this case the minorities, to fully understand what exactly this term means. Racial profiling entails picking someone out for special scrutiny, simply because of his or her race. It happens when highway police officers pull over black people who have committed no traffic violations of any sort and intentionally ignore whites presuming that black people are more likely to be involved in criminal acts. It happens when people of Middle Eastern descent are singled out and strip-searched because of their looks. There are at least a million people in the United States who are of Middle Eastern descent; do we then consider them all terrorists? Fundamentally, believing that one can achieve safety by looking at characteristics instead of behaviors is wrong. In the essay “Close Encounters with U.S Immigration.” by khan and the essay “Everything Isn’t Racial Profiling.” by Chavez, they both agree on the fact that racial profiling is wrong.
I am against racial profiling because, not only is it morally wrong and unfair it makes no sense. It makes no sense to search and scrutinize people just because they are Black or Pakistani or
Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 11 there have been an increase in the willingness to condone law enforcement and security actions based primarily on the color of ones’ skin. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it has been the official policy of the United States government to stop, interrogate, and detain individuals without criminal charges on the basis of their national origin, ethnicity and religion. Thus, the term racial profiling was coined. Society, however, has been ignorant to the true meaning of racial profiling and has sometimes misinterpreted the government’s continuous attempts to keep the society safe. It is important for the society; especially the group affected most, in this case the minorities, to fully understand what exactly this term means. Racial profiling entails picking someone out for special scrutiny, simply because of his or her race. It happens when highway police officers pull over black people who have committed no traffic violations of any sort and intentionally ignore whites presuming that black people are more likely to be involved in criminal acts. It happens when people of Middle Eastern descent are singled out and strip-searched because of their looks. There are at least a million people in the United States who are of Middle Eastern descent; do we then consider them all terrorists? Fundamentally, believing that one can achieve safety by looking at characteristics instead of behaviors is wrong. In the essay “Close Encounters with U.S Immigration.” by khan and the essay “Everything Isn’t Racial Profiling.” by Chavez, they both agree on the fact that racial profiling is wrong.
I am against racial profiling because, not only is it morally wrong and unfair it makes no sense. It makes no sense to search and scrutinize people just because they are Black or Pakistani or
Cited: http://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/racial%20profiling%20report.pdf http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec01/racial_profile.html Oxford English Dictionary.