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Racial profiling is something that has been with us since people first saw another race.  When we first see someone new we automatically insinuate something about that person.  When we see someone of a different race we already have an assumption about how that person is going to act due to the fact of stereotyping.  The picture we receive of a person with color is already painted for us because of other say.  With stereotyping in action something like racial profiling is very common.  It is easy to blame something on someone if they are different from you .  Racial profiling is not something we have to live with.  There have been many fights and court cases that have tried to bring this horrendous crime to an end.  We must also find a way to be more culturally aware.  It is always good to be well informed about other cultures.  The fight for the end of racial profiling starts with you and me; we must end racial profiling and have a brighter and more peaceful tomorrow.

Racial Profiling

As a first step, it is useful to define "racial profiling," because people use the term to mean different things. The reference to “racial profiling,” is the law enforcement practices of taking the race of a potential suspect into account in deciding whether to initiate investigation of that suspect.  One need not consider race to the exclusion of all other factors to be engaged in racial profiling. Rather, a "profile" will often contain a variety of factors: If one or more of them is race, then we have a racial profile.  The most familiar instance of racial profiling is what some have dubbed "Driving While Black”. This kind of profiling involves police stopping motorists on the pretext that they have committed a traffic violation often a minor one.  Although a traffic violation might be the objective foundation for the stop, the actual reason might include the race of the suspect. Police sometimes assume that African-American drivers are more likely than white drivers to be transporting illicit drugs.

Profiling can be committed in many contexts involving safety, security and protection issues.  Some examples might be:

• in law enforcement, such as policing and border control;
• by security personnel, for example, private security guards;
• by employers, for example in conducting security clearances of staff;
• in housing accommodation, for example if landlords assume that certain applicants or tenants will be involved in criminal or other illegal activity;
• by service providers, for instance if taxis do not stop at night for certain persons; and
• In the criminal justice system, such as in courts and prisons.

These facts are brought to you from, (OHRC Racial Profiling inquiry).   

Racial Profiling in Action

While racial profiling is illegal, a 1996 Supreme Court decision allows police to stop motorists and search their vehicles if they believe trafficking illegal drugs or weapons.  More traffic stops leads to more arrests, which further skews the racial profiling statistics against African Americans.   Studies have shown that African Americans are far more likely to be stopped and searched.  Are African Americans really committing more crimes or are they just caught more often because the police target them?  This is a vicious cycle that even the strictest law enforcement advocates would admit is patently unfair. 

Racial Facts

Over time, the blood of many whites, blacks and Native Americans mingled.  Later Chinese immigrants who came to the United States in the mid-1800s to build the transcontinental railroad eventually settles in the West Coast cities like San Francisco, though Chinese immigrants was later curtailed by law.  And on the east Coast, the turn of the century saw a great wave of European immigration, with Greek, Russian, Polish Irish and Italian.  America is the chameleon is changing colors.  Today, due to demographics, we can gaze into our future.  In 1950, America was nearly 85 percent white.  Today this nation is 73 percent white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic, 3 percent Asian, and 1 percent Native American.  (This information is from the book The color of our Future).  Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group in America.  They have also become politically active, in California and the Pacific Northwest the governor of Washington State is a Chinese American.  The census bureau projects that the number of Latino Americans will surpass blacks as the largest nonwhite group by 2005.  Around the year 2050, whites will become a minority.  According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, we’re entering a century in which race in America will be turned upside down.  By the Middle of that century, whites will be a minority, and minorities will be in the majority.  (The Color of our future).  This will cause everything to change.  Political and social power will be reapportioned.  The neighborhoods, the schools and workplace, even racial categories themselves will be altered.  Any massive social change is bound to bring uncertainty, even fear.  (The color of our future). 

While racial profiling is illegal, a 1996 Supreme Court decision allows police to stop motorists and search their vehicles if they believe trafficking illegal drugs or weapons.  More traffic stops leads to more arrests, which further skews the racial profiling statistics against African Americans.   Studies have shown that African Americans are far more likely to be stopped and searched.  Are African Americans really committing more crimes or are they just caught more often because the police target them?  This is a vicious cycle that even the strictest law enforcement advocates would admit is patently unfair.  (The definition of racial profiling)

Presents data on the nature and characteristics of citizen contacts with the police over a 12-month period. Findings are provided from a nationally representative survey of nearly 90,000 residents age 16 or older. Detailed information is presented on face-to-face contacts with the police including traffic stops, arrests, handcuffing and incidents of police use-of-force. Discusses relevance of the findings to the issue of racial profiling. The report provides demographic characteristics of citizens and police officers involved in traffic stops and use of force encounters.  AN important survey can be found on (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cpp99.pdf)

The fight for Racial Profiling:

The primary focus of the NAACP continues to be the protection and enhancement of the civil rights of African Americans and other minorities. Membership, the lifeblood of the Association, is open to anyone believing in the basic tenets of the NAACP. Branch and Field Services supervises the regional offices and is in charge of providing the branches with all relevant information, investigating problem situations, making recommendations to the Board of Directors and providing a variety of support services.  This can be found on   (http://www.naacp.org/)

Static’s of Racial profiling:

These charts show how the police work, and how racial profiling plays a role in there jobs.

Table 1. General Demographics of Contacts and Searches (2003)

     * Race/Ethnicity are defined by Senate Bill 1074 as being of a "particular descent, including Caucasian, African, Hispanic, Asian,
        or Native American".

Table 2. Comparison of Traffic Stops of "Permanent Inhabitants" and UT-Austin Demographics

     * Race/Ethnicity are defined by Senate Bill 1074 as being of a "particular descent, including Caucasian, African, Hispanic, Asian,
        or Native American".

Information is from (http://www.utexas.edu/admin/utpd/profilingstats.html)

According to the Federal Household Survey, "most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998. "And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%.  ( Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).  The United States incarcerates African-American men at a rate that is approximately four times the rate of incarceration of Black men in South Africa.  Also one in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 years old is under correctional supervision or control.  (Craig Haney, Ph.D, Mauer, M. & Huling, T, and the Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System).  The Human rights watch and the Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs state:

Most drug offenders are white. Five times as many whites use drugs as blacks. Yet blacks comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison. The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse treatment.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics have report that, "As of March 2001, 16 of the 49 State police agencies with patrol duties required officers to collect the race or ethnicity of all drivers involved in a traffic stop. Thirty-seven State agencies collected the race or ethnicity of motorists when an arrest was made, and 22 agencies did so following a vehicle or occupant search. Ten State police agencies—Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Utah—did not require their State troopers to collect race or ethnicity data."  In Montgomery County, MD in 2001, “Blacks drivers were about three times as likely as whites to be asked if their vehicles could be searched. Of 450 searches, 197, or 43.8 percent, were of black drivers; 150 were of whites; and 78 were Hispanics.”  (Montgomery Traffic Data Show Race Disparity). 

Racial profiling has been with us for as long as anyone can remember.  It’s a weapon used by people who are insecure, and who are afraid.  It’s a never ending fight for a person of color.  The information that has been gathered will hopefully educate those who do not understand and be used as a beacon of hope that something has horrible as racial profiling will end.  There is a long way to go before the end of racial profiling, this is just a step I the right direction.