Profiling: A Growing Problem Of Racial Profiling

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Can you imagine being stopped by the police on your way to an everyday activity, soon to find out that it was all because of the color of your skin? This is called racial profiling, defined as: “a controversial and illegal discriminatory practice in which individuals are targeted for suspicion of crimes based on their ethnicity,race,or religion rather than on evidence-based suspicious behavior”(Racial Profiling).This is a growing problem that can happen to anyone at anytime due to lingering racism and ignorance that still exists today. Racial profiling isn’t fair to anyone. People should be judged on the kind of person they are rather than how they look. Some say that racial profiling is a problem that only African American can relate to ,but …show more content…

An African American judge, David Cunningham, filed a lawsuit of 10 million dollars after being stopped and arrested for not wearing a seatbelt.He claims that the UCLA police used too much force than needed and he feels that it was only due to his race. He was stopped by the police on November 23 right after he was leaving a fitness gym. He claimed that he was thrown against a car, handcuffed, and locked him in the car until a black sergeant arrived. He was pulled over outside of the L.A Fitness building and was buckling his seatbelt. One of the officers asked to see his license and registration ,and he began to try and get it out. He couldn’t find the papers in the glove compartment so he got out to look for them in the truck, and that was when he was thrown against the car and handcuffed. This case was definitely a case of racial profiling and those police officers really had no business arresting anyone that wasn’t on the UCLA campus. Another reason that makes this case questionable is the man 's age. Just by looking at his picture you can tell he looks no younger than fifty. This means that just by looking at him the police officers probably would have assumed no force would be needed to handcuff him ,yet they used force anyways. According to David Cunningham, they used enough force to really leave marks on his body. He says,”I am shaken, battered,and bruised by this ordeal. I feel I have suffered nerve damage in my …show more content…

Everyday people can also be guilty of judging or discriminating other people just for their race. Just think of the shooting of Trayvon Martin for example. George Zimmerman was on duty as a neighborhood watch captain in a fairly wealthy gated community when he saw a black teenage boy in a hoodie walking through the neighborhood. He called 911 and was instructed to wait until they came ,but he instead disregarded the information and attacked Trayvon leading to Trayvon 's death. The biggest problem with this case was the fact that George Zimmerman considered him a threat just by observing that he was black and that he wore a hoodie. This is not enough information to decide whether or not someone is a danger to a community or not. Some people might disagree with the fact that Zimmerman was guilty and might argue that Trayvon attacked him first ,but soon after the trial George Zimmerman was arrested again for domestic abuse which shows he already had a history of violence.The effects of racial profiling are not just physical and immediate. They can lead to long term psychological and emotional problems. People might even change their everyday activities and schedule just to somehow avoid being a victim of racial profiling once again. After time and time again of someone being told they 're not good enough because of something they really can’t change, they might just start to believe

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