Since the beginning of American history, the media have played a massive role in how people perceive certain viewpoints. The media comes in all different shapes, whether it is propaganda, a commercial, advertisements and even newspaper articles can influence and individual minds. It can be even used to change one’s opinion on the way they may think of a particular race. Still today the media influences our mind, however many believe due to media bias and racial profiling will affect how “fair” their trial will be. In fact in today’s society, citizens in the United States are unable to gain a fair trial due to racial profiling, and bias in the media.
Since early in American history, those who were not white were perceived to be non-American. Non-whites were treated as if they were inferior to the whites this was put into their minds by the media. Non-whites were stripped of their rights to vote and become citizens until the 14th amendment was passed stating African American are citizens. However, even to this today, non-whites are being racially profiled by their colors. “Blacks and Hispanic people generally represent more than 85 percent of those stopped, but the police; through their combined population make up a small share of the city racial composition” (Baker 1). Even though Black and Hispanics only make up a minority of the population, they are stopped more often than whites. Thus, showing racial profiling due to skin color still exists. “Trayon Christian, who used his debit card to buy a Ferragamo belt at Barneys New York and was detained by police officers who accused him of making a fraudulent transaction” (Givhan 1). The police believed that Christian was unable to afford the item so they stopped him. In an interview, C...
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... Carol Ullmann and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "California Police Stop Proves Racial Profiling Is Alive and Well." 2010.Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Schneider, Ann. "What Is ‘Constitutional’ Stop-and-Frisk?" BillMoyerscom. © 2014 Public Affairs Television, Inc, 26 Dec. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. .
In the United States of America today, racial profiling is a deeply troubling national problem. Many people, usually minorities, experience it every day, as they suffer the humiliation of being stopped by police while driving, flying, or even walking for no other reason than their color, religion, or ethnicity. Racial profiling is a law enforcement practice steeped in racial stereotypes and different assumptions about the inclination of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or Arab people to commit particular types of crimes. The idea that people stay silent because they live in fear of being judged based on their race, allows racial profiling to live on.
The justice system is in place in America to protect its citizens, however in the case of blacks and some other minorities there are some practices that promote unfairness or wrongful doing towards these groups. Racial profiling is amongst these practices. In cases such as drug trafficking and other criminal acts, minorities have been picked out as the main culprits based off of skin color. In the article “Counterpoint: The Case Against Profiling” it recognizes racial profiling as a problem in America and states, “[In order to maintain national security] law-enforcement officers have detained members of minority groups in vehicles more than whites”…. “these officers assume that minorities commit more drug offenses, which is not the case” (Fauchon). In relationship to law enforcement there has also been many cases of police brutality leaving young blacks brutally injured, and even dead in recent years, cases such as Michael Brown, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddy Gray just to name a few. Many of these young men were unarmed, and the police involved had no good justification for such excess force. They were seen as threats primarily because of their skin color. Despite the fact this nation is trying to attain security, inversely they are weakening bonds between many of its
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 American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens the right to ‘take up’ all black persons seen ‘gadding abroad’ without their master’s permission” (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public’s attention.
One of the biggest reason stop-and-frisk should be abolished is in hopes to decrease such blatant racial profiling that has been going on under the name of “stop-and-frisk”. In 2007, 55% of the people stopped in New York were blacks and 30% were Hispanic (“Update: Crime and Race”). When checked again in 2011 a total of 685,000 people were stopped by the police of that 685,000, 52.9% were African Americans, 33.7% were Latino, and 9.3% were white (“Racial Profiling”). There is a story of an innocent victim of the stop-and-frisk policy, a man by the name of Robert Taylor. Police in Torrance stopped the elderly man and claimed he fit the description of a suspect that was linked to a robbery. But there was one simple problem; Taylor is a light complexioned, tall, 60 year-old man and the suspect was believed to be a short, dark complexioned, stocky man in his thirties; nothing like Taylor at all (Hutchinson). His shows that the police do not always stop people based on the right reasons, they tend to stop people based on the color of thei...
Civilrights.org. (2002, April 13). Justice on trial. Washington, DC: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Leadership Conference on Civil RightsEducation Fund. Retrieved April 12, 2005, from Civilrights.org Web site: http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/cj/
For the past few years there has been an ongoing debate surrounding the issue of racial profiling. The act of racial profiling may rest on the assumption that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than any individual of other races or ethnicities. Both David Cole in the article "The Color of Justice" and William in the article "Road Rage" take stance on this issue and argue against it in order to make humanity aware of how erroneous it is to judge people without evidence. Although Cole and William were very successful in matters of showing situations and qualitative information about racial profiling in their articles, both of them fail at some points.
Racial bias in media causes prejudice and discriminatory practices against African-Americans and other minorities groups in America. Today in our society, we are still struggling to overcome racial tension within America because we are over shallow with prejudice and discriminatory images and ideas. Many White Americans feel that the media refuses to report on all crimes committed by blacks against whites, yet report on all crimes committed by whites against blacks. Therefore, they see the media as being not bias. My research will show that African-Americans are over-represented in news reports on crime, and within those stories, they are more likely shown as the perpetrators of the crime than as the persons reacting to or suffering from it. The news media has often been criticized for the way it chooses to portray Latinos and African-Americans.
Despite the fact racism has been around for hundreds of years, upcoming generations are becoming more open minded and less likely to publicly berate minorities; racial profiling, however, is the one loophole of racism America overlooks. Police officials often use the practices of racial profiling to discretely single out minority races. A common approach to this is through traffic patrols. According to a statistic based in San Jose, CA, nearly 100,000 drivers were stopped; during the year ending in June 2000; and of these drivers less than 32% were white, the remaining 68% of drivers were a...
Allegations of being pulled over by the police for simply being of a minority are seen as propitious because they believe that “it’s absurd to look at who’s being stopped without looking at who’s speeding” (Donald, P1010). These individuals also believe that Benchmarks are inaccurate and unreliable, showing that it would be unclear how often police pull over a certain minority group. They also believe that some department stores “may have employees that racially profile there customers but it isn’t the way that our security are trained to seek out those attempting to shoplift” (Smith, P1) Also, they believe that crime rates in high crime areas have lowered because of the stop and frisk policy. “Our crime strategies and tools – have made New York City the safest big city in America”. This shows that this side of the racial profiling argument believes that racial profiling
Surveys and research shows that Black and Hispanic males are more inclined to being victims of racial profiling just because of their appearance. Law enforcement fails to do their job because they allow the race of potential suspects to cloud their decision to follow appropriate procedure. When an arrest is made by a police officer, the police are obligated to make sure that the apprehended suspect is treated equally no matter their race. In addition, Black and Hispanic men are subjected to stop-and-frisk procedures and are more frequently arrested without any probable
People are beginning to be stopped for the way they are dressed or even worse by the color of their skin or the culture they were born in which is something that they cannot change. Some races being stopped and frisked more than others. As said in the article Jim Crow Policing “an over whelming 84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009 were of black or Hispanic New Yorkers” (Herbert 37). How would you feel about being harassed because of your heritage and color of your skin? Most people will get angry and upset and I believe we have the right to because it is unfair to be singled out for something like that. Families are discouraged to go on trips, because they don’t want to be inconvenienced by law enforcement for their image. As said in the article, Hollywood couple stopped by police, say they were racially profiled, “I’ve been stopped by police before, but I never been fearful for my life” (Duke Hawkins-Gaar 1). This was said by Johnson a young woman who was trying to go on a romantic getaway with her boyfriend until they were stopped to be frisked by police, because of being African American.
Racial tension has been part of America ever since the civil war. Today we have a different issue with race which is called racial profiling. Over the years the relationship between the police and community of color has gone bitter do to racial profiling. America’s society today tends to be tainted by racial profiling and stereotypes. These issues can cause great effects on our society. Racial profiling or stereotyping could diminish how a certain race is viewed. Racial discrimination can be a result from having racial profiling and stereotypes in our present culture. Today racial discrimination is used to approach citizens assumed to be criminals. This is called racial profiling. Although some argue that racial profiling is a necessary tool for law enforcement to protect our safety, it puts some people at a disadvantage while it privileges others. Overall racial profiling is bad for the economy, unconstitutional, and sets borderlines for different races.
Racial bias evolves from generation to generation, and we as citizens are supposed to be protected against such actions of discrimination especially by law enforcement, but such actions as stop and frisk, to include automobile and body searches for no other reason than the color of one’s skin is a violation of our civil rights. Instead of being violated in an inappropriate matter as openly as it was done while fighting for our civil rights, it’s now done through law enforcement. The Constitution is supposed to guarantee equal treatment under the law for everyone, but blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately victimized by police and other front line law enforcement officials. Racial disparities affect both innocent and guilty minority citizens, and are broken down into explanations such as; People of color commit more crimes, The Criminal Justice System is racially bias, and America is a racially bias society (Weich and Angulo, 2002). All of these explanations have been proven true by the actions of law enforcement and society, by using racial profiling as a means to target minority communities. Although, there are efforts
Racial Profiling is carried out in many parts of the world and makes it difficult to achieve equality throughout the world. Racial Profiling starts with ordinary people and can be prevented by the authorities, but when the authorities are the ones doing the profiling it becomes more difficult to prevent. Even then, the media has the power to bring attention to the authorities wrongdoings, But when the media decides to use that power to not only not bring attention to the authorities, instead the media will defend and support these unjust acts. Now racial profiling is almost unpreventable, and the people that are targeted by the media and authorities their daily lives are changed and not only impacts them but impacts the places they live. Although some people argue there is no profiling in the media or used by the authorities, The authorities do racially profile and the media 's coverage only enhances the perspective of the authorities.
Racial profiling in America, as evidenced by recent events, has reached a critical breaking point. No longer can an African American, male or female, walk into a store, school, or any public place without fear of being stereotyped as a person of suspicion. Society constantly portrays the African American