Racial Profiling

The Distrust against Law Enforcements

In today’s society, everything is social media driven. With social media, communication around the world has never been easier. However, the media can often result in negative images, that can even lead to serious and permanent consequences. It also is very manipulative in how easily it can affect how people feel towards a certain topic. The mainstream media acknowledges racial profiling, done by police officers, more than ever. Racial profiling is a sensitive topic and it affects some more than others, such as minorities like African Americans. Many African Americans feel targeted by law enforcements because of the inequality they receive in communities. They feel uncomfortable around police officers

because of what is portrayed in social media. The media displays brutal violence from white officers to people of color in a way that is looked down upon. When people look into incidents like this, many find out that the police officer’s only reason for the violence was simply because the person ‘looked’ suspicious. This is when people started to question their trust in their local police departments. Racial profiling is the act of suspecting a person of a certain race, committed a crime rather than the characteristics or behavior observed from that individual person. This is why African Americans feel target by their law enforcements.
African Americans feel unsafe around police officers, because of their skin color.

Some, especially males, feel like they cannot walk down the street without getting stopped or possibly not return home. In an image, there is two men, one is white while the other one is black (Winters). The image is symmetrical, however, the only difference is that a police car only appears in the rearview mirror of the African American. The phrase ‘driving while black’, refers to the racial profiling among African Americans drivers. That phrase is presented heavily in this image. Both men in the image are gripping the steering wheel (Winters). This make them both appear to be guilty, yet the police officer is only after the African American. It is inferred that because the man is black, the police officers suspect that he has committed an offense. This creates a distrust with our law enforcements which will eventually lead to a distrust in the government

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African Americans also feel threatened because they are apart of the minority group. In 2014, data on the number of arrests of each crime was separated according to the races that walk the streets of New York City. The people that made up New York City were White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. The data recorded in a chart illustrates that majority of the crimes committed were by African Americans (Obbop). A reason for this could be that in the city of New York, Blacks and Hispanics lived in parts of the city that were relatively poor. Most kids that grew up here had little to no motivation in life and most likely had no one to encourage them to more better themselves. They probably were never told that there was a better life out there for them to explore. The crime rates in this area were high because they had nothing to lose. The highest number of arrests made by African Americans in New York City, was because of shooting outbreaks (Obbop). This would explain why police officers would shoot first—they were always suspected to be carrying a gun. However, this also illustrates a picture as to why police officers are quick to accuse an African American that looks suspicious to them. This could be that police officers feel intimidated by black people.
Those who feel like they have to protect themselves from people that are supposed to protect them. This creates distrust and this is the same energy that African Americans carry with them against police officers. An informational speaker states, “When people distrust law enforcements because people believe that the law is not being forced equally across all communities, they grow to distrust the government”(“Jivani” 00:01:46-55). This statement makes people feel like the government is working for some people but not all. African Americans feel that the government is ignoring the problem, and they fear the problem will never get fixed. He later states,“When seen as unfair and illegitimate, it brings a distrust of law enforcements”(“Jivani” 00:01:33-40). African Americans do not feel safe around the people that are supposed to protect them. There is a need for communicating this to local police officers to solve this problem. Police officers are not meant to be illustrated as the bad guy to young African Americans.
Unfortunately, even court cases had made it impossible sue police officers for racial bias.

In the court case, City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, a black man was pulled over by Los Angeles police department for driving with a burned out tail light. The police officer then proceeds to put the man in a chokehold (Eichelberger). Pulling someone over with a burned out tail light is completely apart of protocol, but immediately putting them in a chokehold afterwards is unnecessary. It brings up questions as to whether or not police officers were trained this way. The ruling of this case was that they had to prove that every person stopped by the Los Angeles police department, was put in a chokehold (Eichelberger). People wondered, was one person not enough? If they did it to one person then they have to have done it before to someone else. It seems like these cases are protecting policeman from their own unjustly

matters.
People can no longer be blind to the growing problem in the United States. An informational speaker states, “It is time for us to be comfortable with the uncomfortable topic about race”(“Hobson” 00:07:31-36). Not talking about the topic race, is ignoring the problem and allowing it to grow. Soon, it can possibly grow to the point as to where our nation divides. Constantly sweeping the problem under the rug, will not make it go away but potentially make it worse. She later states how weird it would be if you walked into a boardroom and everyone in the room was black, but then it would not be weird if everyone was white (“Hobson” 00:04:20-39). This tells people that they need to be brave and let diversity into their lives. People have become too comfortable with the idea that everyone to like the same things as them. They have also became comfortable with the idea that everyone needs to look like them. The first step to fixing the problem is bringing awareness to it. The second step is putting forth the action.
In conclusion, African Americans have felt threatened and targeted by police officers because they are apart of the minority group. They still feel unequal, even with all the rights they have gained over the past years. Police officers are seen around helping out in neighborhoods and communities, however some people view them differently. African Americans view police officers as people who has power over them and they are abusing that power. Once society realizes that this is an issue, the better the image the United States can portray towards other nations. This is a call to action to improve the unjust system; this issue can no longer be ignored.