Racial Profiling Report

Racial Profiling, according to the Ontario Human Rights Commission (n.d.) is defined as stereotypical assumptions made based on one’s race, colour ethnicity, etc. It varies from criminal profiling, which would be to associate one’s race with criminal activity ( Ontario Human Rights Commission , n.d.).

Racial profiling has sparked significant discussion on social media and has become a prominent global issue. Racial Profiling has been a topic which has been evident since the early days of slavery. Police were authorised and allowed to detain slaves if they were seen wandering in the streets (despite what their ‘ownership’ status was) (Rushing, 2013). While segregation and racial discrimination were more prominent in the early 1900s, racial profiling has undoubtedly been heavily influenced by the
Racial profiling is looked at as a ‘defense-mechanism’; This ‘defense-mechanism’ allows for people to have a ‘sense of alertness’ around those who are of a specific race in order to keep their security at an optimum level (Harcourt, 2006). Racial profiling, just like any other topic, has a multitude of discussive points with the two significant POV’s (for and against) always being questioned and in a constant struggle with one another. There are multiple examples of both sides; This example being very relevant and a strong one, “Paul Sperry of the Hoover Institution who expressed that ‘young muslim males’ were all Jihadis and on the flipside the police commissioner of New York City who stated that racial profiling is pointless since terrorists are too smart to stick to a certain ‘look’” (Harcourt, 2006). Although considered a byproduct of discrimination there are moments where racial profiling may prove to be fruitful but again it taints the group of people being targeted as being of a certain type, even if that may not be the case. Racial profiling can be fruitful in providing a prediction for the aftermath of