Myths Of Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is seen on a regular basis in traffic stops. This discrimination within the criminal justice system is composed of mainly African Americans and Hispanics. These minorities are targeted within the streets as criminals by police officers. A video from The Orland Sentinel showed major evidence of racial profiling by police. Within the video, there were more than one thousand people’s roadside stops shown. Statistics acquired from one hundred and forty-eight hours of video demonstrated that “Almost 70 percent of the motorists stopped were black or Hispanic. More than 80 percent of the cars that were searched were driven by blacks and Hispanics. Although deputies contend they stop cars only for legitimate traffic violations - as required by the Florida Supreme Court - only nine of 1,084 drivers stopped - less than 1 percent - received traffic tickets […] What is clear is the pattern that is repeated in tape after tape: In three of every four stops, the drivers are black or Hispanic.” These statistics make it obvious to see that racial profiling indeed is a problem that comes along with the criminal justice system. My family has experienced racial profiling within traffic stops. On a rainy afternoon, my parents decided to go to the store. When they arrived at the store, they realized that there had been a police officer watching them throughout their journey of getting to the store. When leaving the store, the police officers followed my parents. He shined his lights so that they would stop. My father asked the officer why he had been stopped and the officer responded by saying that it was illegal to have an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. When this happened, I investigated and found that it was not a law that was placed in Arkansas and even if it was it should have been a warning since it is not something that is heard of. The officer then asked my dad for his license and my dad told him he had a Mexican license and the officer told him to get out of the vehicle and proceeded on asked him where the drugs were and that my dad needed to take it out. My father responded saying that there was none but they started searching the car. Then the officer asked my mother for her license and she told them she did not have one and then they told her to get out of the car. My dad told them that it was one thing to ask him to get out of the car, but not my mom since it was heavily raining and that was unjust. They then told my dad to call someone to pick them both up and that the car was going to be confiscated. They gave my dad a ticket for no license, not putting in that they had actually stopped him for having a car freshener on the rearview mirror. This showed that the main reason for the stop was probably for …show more content…
These types of individuals say that what actually happens is the oppression of whites. Others that disagree on the fact of racial profiling are those that “[say] it is no longer the problem it used to be — that we now live in a post-racial society, and any incidents of racial profiling are conducted by rogue or bigoted individuals” (De La Torre). It is hard to understand the individuals with this mindset, but being a humble and God loving person, the way that I would respond to these assumptions of racial profiling is doing my best to educate those individuals about how much of a prevalent issue it is. I understand that many times because have certain thoughts and beliefs since they honestly do not know how big of an issue something is for a person. I have personally encountered a moment where speaking up on my thoughts and feelings helped someone realize how people actually feel about a certain topic. It needs to be kept in mind that no matter how much a person may try to educate a person on something like racial profiling, there will be times where people will not listen, but like there are people that won’t listen it will be rewarding to know that out of some of those people you educated at least one now feels a different way about the