For some people racial profiling is just something on television and for others it’s an everyday thing. It is 2017, and racial profiling is still going on everywhere. There are many of people who still profile other people every day. Racial profiling is when someone makes assumptions about someone else based on the color of that person’s skin and his or her physical appearance. There are multiple types, including: Driving While Black, Shopping While Black, profiling on airplanes, common types of racial profiling, and there are many effects of racial profiling.
There are many people who still profile other people everyday. Driving While Black is when police officers target people of colors, such as people who are black, Hispanic, Native American, and Indian. “A black driver is about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than a white person, or about 23 percent more likely than a Hispanic driver” (The Washington Post ). One recent case of driving while black took place on July 12, 2015. A woman, Sandra Bland, was pulled over for switching lanes and not using her turn signals.
The police asked her to step out of the car, and when she did, the officers started acting aggressively towards her, which made her lose her temper. A couple of minutes later the police car’s dash-cam shows the officers tackling her and beating her up. They arrested her, and she was found in her jail cell dead three days later. One question people are still asking is “ If this was a white woman or man would this have happened? ” (McClain). Another type of racial profiling is shopping while black/brown. Shopping While Black (SWB) is being racially profiled in retail settings (Gabbidon). SWB is something that happens often. There is a saying that if you don’t know what it means to shop while black you’re not black – or Hispanic for that matter. It refers to when a person of color is racially profiled while they’re shopping – followed around or watched closely by employees or security, in some cases treated rudely, like a potential criminal, in ways far more egregious than just bad customer service” (The Kansas City Star).
One case of SWB happened when a man named Trayon Christian was arrested in 2013 after he bought an expensive Salvatore Ferragamo belt from a store on the Upper East Side named “Barneys. Christian was stopped and arrested a block away because the store claimed that he had used a stolen debit card. “They said my card wasn’t real; it was fake. They said someone at Barneys called to report it” (The Kansas City Star). He was in a precinct for two hours. After he had been released, he filed a lawsuit against the store. A year later, in 2014, Barneys agreed to pay $525,000 in fines to settle racial profiling claims Another kind of racial profiling is profiling on airplanes.
“Our challenges to discriminatory profiling, torture, and illegal detentions of Muslims in the U. S. began in the days immediately after the tragic 9/11 attacks when Muslim, South Asian, and Arab (MASA) men were rounded up and detained and continues to this day with our opposition to Trump’s Muslim ban. ” (Center For Constitutional Rights) After 9/11 people of color were being detained and questioned. This event took place 16 years ago, and it is still impacting people’s lives with President Trump’s new “Muslim Ban. ” This “extreme vetting” system will help “keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US. (Center For Constitutional Rights) The citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries would not be allowed into the United States for 90 days. These nations are Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq. This Muslim ban is causing a mass of controversy around the world. People from those countries can not even enter even though they have a visa that allows them to. These people have family and jobs in the United States. This Muslim Ban is tearing families apart and causing people to lose their jobs.
There are many people who racial profile but different ethnicities do it more than others, such as White on Blacks, Whites on Hispanics, and Whites on Muslims. Many Caucasian people think that black people are thugs and that they are up to something bad, especially since in mostly some movies they have black people play that kind of characters. One case of this was when a young boy named Trayvon Martin was killed by a man named George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin was leaving a store walking home with his hoodie on, and Zimmerman had started following him which made Martin afraid because it was dark outside.
Zimmerman ended up shooting Martin because he looked suspicious. At the trial, Zimmerman was not found guilty even though he had no reason to shoot Martin. Many Caucasian people think that Hispanics are drug dealers and gang related. “Excuse me, I’m going to need to see some identification. You don’t look like you belong here in America. ” (Lavender). A 19-year-old man named Luis Alberto Delgado was pulled over on July 17, 2010, and detained by the U. S Border Patrol because the police thought he had looked “suspicious,” even though Delgado showed his birth certificate which indicated that he was an American citizen because he was born in Houston.
The immigration agents insisted that his birth certificate was fake. He was deported to Mexico, staying there for three months while he was being investigated. After the investigation immigration officials realized that Delgado was an American citizen and cleared him to return to the United States. When he went back to Houston, he realized that he had lost his job. Muslims usually get racially profiled more often than blacks and Hispanics. “ Get out my country. ” said 51 year old Adam Purinton. Purinton opened fire in a place called Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas City, while saying racial slurs to two Indian men.
One of the men, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, passed away at the hospital weeks later, and the other, Alok Madasani, was treated and released from the hospital after a couple days. The shooter also happened to shoot another man named Ian Grillot who was trying to intervene. Authorities charged Purinton with first degree murder. (The Washington Post) The effects of racial profiling can affect, and hurt many people. “To those who have not experienced racial profiling or do not know someone who has, it may seem to be nothing more than a mere inconvenience.
However, racial profiling is much more than a hassle or an annoyance. It has real and direct consequences. Those who experience profiling pay the price emotionally, psychologically, mentally and in some cases even financially and physically” (Ontario Human Rights Commission) Researchers studied the psychological effects of racial profiling and have found that “victim effects” of racial profiling includes many things such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other forms of stress related orders, face related threats, and failure to use community resources.
Racial profiling impacts family, friends, classmates, and neighbours. Those who are opposed to racial profiling indicates that racial profiling is unnecessary and one should not be judged by the color of his or her skin. All races commit crimes, so it should not just be held against people of color. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (The 14th amendment), while defenders of racial profiling believe that racial profiling is okay because other ethnicities have higher crime rates and it should be okay if they have suspicion against other races.
They believe that racism and racial profiling are two different things and should not be in the same category, because racism is judging someone by the color of their skin, and racial profiling is just stating facts. Racial profiling is not racism and racism is not racial profiling. Defenders also say that if the person doesn’t have anything to hide then they should not be scared of being racially profiled and how they’ll rather be safe than sorry when dealing with different ethnicities. Racial profiling happens everywhere, and some people try and make it seem like it’s okay.
Driving while black is something that happens a lot and makes people of color scared because they don’t know what’s going to happen or if they’ll come home alive. Shopping while black makes people feel scared because even though they are not doing anything wrong store owners make it seem like it. Profiling on airplanes happens more than any other kind of profiling after an event that took place over 16 years old ago. Common types of racial profiling always happens, other races profile too but not as much as others.
The different effects of profiling can hurt many people and cause them to be depressed which could lead to other serious things. In American society they make standards for people, and make behaviors for certain races. People don’t grow up racially profiling people; they get it from watching their parents or other adults around them and thinking that the behavior iis okay. I know racial profiling cannot go away for good but it can at least not be happening a lot. No race is better than any other race.