Racial Profiling in Loury’s “Obama, Gates and the American Black Man”
Racism in the form of racial profiling is still evident today. Racial Profiling is judging individuals based on their ethnic group. The renowned author Glenn C. Loury, writes in his work “Obama, Gates and the American Black Man,” about how Black American men are treated in society and how elite members in the United States react and attempt to mend the problem of racial profiling. The overall argument in Loury’s work is that racial profiling exists and needs to be eradicated. If racial profiling was eradicated then the mistreatment of Black American men would decrease while their impact towards society would exponentially increase. “Obama, Gates and …show more content…
Loury states in his work that the United States as a nation is an “ethnic melting pot” (248). The term melting pot implies that everyone who comes to the United States merges or melts into the United States culture. However, this is not true in the States. Citizens of the United States still retain a part of their original cultures. This is why the United States does not have a nation food or language because the nation is a mixture of cultures from other nations. Because of this mixture of cultures, people from specific ethnic groups show favoritism towards others who are also a part of their ethnic group. Additionally, the second statement Loury makes using logos is that “45 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964… [the United States has] a black man in the White House. This assumption is also a genetic fallacy because the author implies that a Black president will work to strengthen and empower the black community but this assumption is in vain. Loury also shares that there are many “poorly educated, infrequently employed, troubled but still human young black men” (250). The common assumption with the population of African-American men is that they are troubled because of gang violence and drug dealing, but as the reader sees in “Obama, Gates and the American Black Man”, the assumption is not the best way to determine the truth. These men are troubled because they grow up without role models and hope. Like in the novel The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, because the incarcerated Wes never had a role model to show that there are better options in life other than drug dealing, he spends the rest of his otherwise productive life in prison. Therefore, the black community needs hope. Loury also raises the statistic that the “number of Americans in prison and jail has risen nearly five-fold since 1980” (250-251). So, the number of incarcerated Americans has