Racial Profiling: Individual Prejudice or Organizational Protocol?

Racial Profiling: Individual Prejudice or Organizational Protocol?

Racial profiling is generally defined as discrimination put into action based on a stereotype. No one is excluded from the potential to experience some form of racial profiling, regardless of one’s race, gender, or religion. Racial profiling has existed in various forms since slavery. During the reconstruction of the South, the first sense of racial profiling began with “Black Codes”. “Black Codes” were created to maintain a new form of slavery. These “codes” made it punishable by imprisonment and indentured servitude for any African American who loitered, remained unemployed, drunk, or in debt. The “Black Codes” were a transparent form of what we call racial profiling today. From a ruling class perspective, the minority groups are constantly undermined, intimidated, attacked, imprisoned, discredited, and sometimes shot and killed. These acts take place in order for the ruling class to maintain control and in most cases unjustly abuse their power.

Today, the most common form of racial profiling is done by the police and targeted toward African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. It is otherwise known as “DWB”, “driving while black” or “driving while brown”. This refers to the practice of police targeting African Americans and any other non-White ethnic group at traffic stops because they believe that minorities are more likely to be engaged in criminal activity. The first public attention of racial profiling by the police began in mid-1980, when the (DEA), Drug Enforcement Administration, released guidelines that would profile drug couriers. The DEA notified all the police departments across the country to search for narcotics traffickers on major highways. Dependent on the area, the police were told which ethnic group to focus on because that group would tend to dominate that drug trade in that area. Although very successful in decreasing drug trafficking, lawsuits increased because of the extra scrutiny police officers were putting on innocent minorities while practicing the use of racial profiling. The racial lobbyists were also outraged because they felt there was enough evidence to prove the police had focused on “dark skinned” drug traffickers, while the lobbyists implied that “light skinned” drug traffickers were not apprehended. While racial profiling is illegal, the Supre...

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...he bill believe the bill will set precedence for the end of racial profiling.

In conclusion, I find it hard to believe that we will ever experience a world without a nonbiased controlling society, but I know the importance of our actions and how we can strive to create a society that is less likely to predict actions based on skin color, gender, or religion. By understanding others ideals, we can change the way we react. I foresee our world becoming more socially aware of our melting pot society. We are culturally diverse and we must invest in a culturally diverse system in which to live so we can maintain a peaceful society.

Works Cited

Ramirez, Deborah, Amy Farrell and Jack McDevitt. A Resource Guide on Racial

Profiling Data Collection Systems: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned.

Northwestern University, 2000.

Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. “Driving While Black”. CounterPunch on

the web 1998. 19 February 2005

Anonymous. “Minority Drivers Searched at Higher Rates, Report Says”. Omaha World-

Herald 26 February 2005

Anonymous. “Senate Approves Bill Attacking Racial Profiling”. The Kansas City

Channel.com 23 February 2005