The inverse would also be true. However, that question is not entirely black and white, pardon the pun (Stenning).
The reason for this is that race can inform whether or why to stop someone for a traffic stop or on the sidewalk with racism not being the root reason. For example, a young white woman in her 20's would stand out like a sore thumb in a drug-infested area that is almost exclusively black and Hispanic. It is almost a certainty that the women is either horribly lost or that she's there for less than noble reasons such as buying drugs or something of that nature. There could be other explanations but they are very unlikely. It is not all that dissimilar from a person that is black and is in an affluent and mostly white area. The person could very well be rich and well-off but there are a lot of other (and more likely, at least statistically) explanations as to why the person is there. However, assuming the worst is never a good thing but there is a difference between using race as a guide and using race as a cudgel (Stenning).
The depth and breadth that some police tactics take can be quite disturbing. The major reason for this is that drug smugglers and other criminals go to great lengths to conceal what they are smuggling up to and including putting drugs or other contraband in their anuses, their vaginas, or even ingestion through the normal digestive tract. Agencies like customs enforcement go so far as to give suspected smugglers cavity searches and "monitored bowel movements" to make sure that suspected smugglers do not indeed have drugs on or "in" their person. The problem with the above, though, is that the searches done to ensnare such people are very invasive and in many ways brutal and innocent people sometimes get trapped by such tactics unfairly and sometimes because of improper racial profiling and/or because the race of the person being search fits the "template" smuggler or other criminal profile (Thomsen)
Racial profiling can be applied and assessed throughout culture but it's almost always associated with policing habits and tactics and is also commonly associated with racism against minority groups as they seem to be the ones most affected by the tactic. The issue with the term "racism" is that it is not in and of itself descriptive but it's extremely accusatory and can sometimes be applied in entirely too broad ways. However, the subject of racism is not something that can be discarded so easily because it is indeed part and parcel to many stops and seizures that are done by police. Even if a given minority stopped is a criminal, the rules of evidence and other law enforcement principles as codified and enforced by the courts of our countries have held that perverting the process, even with a legitimate criminal, can lead to the person walking scot-free because of improper police action. This is seen as a sick joke to many when murders walk free but minority advocates counter that allowing such convictions to stick would make the situation untenable for racial minorities. After all, Ernesto Miranda, the namesake of the now ubiquitous Miranda Rights was a rapist and a guilty one at that (Crank).
Racial profiling is not always a conscious and intentional act. Some people do with full knowledge that what they are doing is based on prejudice while others may feel justified and feel they are acting rightly and/or they may even do it without really realizing what they are doing and why it is wrong. Perhaps a good example of this in real life is the case of Trayvon Martin. Just because Mr. Martin was in a gated community where it's statistically unlikely that he would actually live, that does not mean that Zimmerman, who ended up shooting and killing him, had a right to assume anything. The case is...
In addition the author suggests that the relationship between police and racial minority citizens has throughout history been controversial, and argues that racial profiling is simply a method by which police agents can perpetuate discrimination and prejudice (Bass, 2001). Mcleod (2003) examines the viewpoint that the problem with racial profiling is that it unmistakable identifies a certain portion of the population as 'them' and pairs that description against 'we' suggesting that
Racial profiling is not new, however, and was a theory of sociology in the late 19th century known as Social Darwinism. Incorrectly using Darwin's theory of evolution, the Social Darwinists believed that some species were morally superior to others, and even some races superior to othersJohnson () Public perception, though, believes in favor of seeing race as a reason for crime, and having a considerable fear of anyone outside their own
Racial Profiling Since 911 The racial profiling implies the discrimination by police to detail a person as suspect basing on the racial manifestations. In the present days the process of racial profiling has changed to a great extent. (Harris, 58) The racial profiling, till the present period was indicated towards the practice of police dragging over the black male drivers discriminately on the empirically valid but morally denounced hypothesis that they
Racial Profiling The distinguished Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies, was arrested for trying to break into someone's house. It happened to be his own (Project America; 2008). This is but one of numerous cases of racial profiling that has been documented in this country and that points to the injustice and irrationality of singling out ethnic minorities for
Ramirez et al. explains this clearly stating "when law enforcement practices are perceived to be biased, unfair, and disrespectful, communities of color and other minority groups are less willing to trust and confide in law enforcement officers and agencies, to report crimes that come to their attention, to provide intelligence and information, and to serve as witnesses at trials (Ramirez et al., 1996)." The author further explains that as
Detroit has also joined Los Angeles and Chicago in having such a regulation. A similar bill was attempted unsuccessfully thus far in Texas (2001). Responding to the concerns of organizations that represent Hispanics, Muslims and individuals of Arab descent, the Detroit City Council unanimously recently approved an ordinance that prohibits city officials from profiling people based on their appearance, race and similar factors. The regulation also bans city officials from
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