One of the most common arguments deals with respecting the Constitution. Racial profiling should be eliminated in routine traffic stops because it leads to a violation of civil rights, poor relationships between police officers and citizens, and decreased urban safety. Racial profiling violates citizens’ rights in a few different ways. The fourth amendment reads, “The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated”, as recited by West Des Moines’ police captain, Scott Wiegert. A traffic stop on the basis of race violates the fourth amendment because the officer can make the victim feel violated instead of secure.
Race has been defined as the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. This has produced the view that Euro-Americans’ social, cultural, and economic advantaged position must be maintained at the expense of others as the normal life. The influential power of race, gender and class are explained and illustrated through the collection of essays. The dynamics of power are divided based on different social classifications. Concrete Responses The essays included present a compelling but biased study within the context of class, race and gender.
This classification makes sense because if crime is caused by terrorists; terrorist will cause crimes. If the majority of minorities are in prisons, then people of color will end up in prison. On the opposing side of racial profiling, many minorities feel that it is a form of racial discrimination that only hurts the good image law enforcement upholds. For example, the California Highway Patrol has recently been taken to court for the misuse of racial profiling. Therefore, a compromise must be made because it would be ideological to believe that there can be a government that bans the use of racial identification.
Final Essay Questions #1. Explain why anthropologists no longer think the race concept is the best way to understand human variation. There are many anthropologists that argue that race concept is not a scientifically useful term. The reason for this is because race concept is a social construction and race is a relative construct. Arbitrariness of classification varies from place to place and person to person.
Over the past five centuries, black people have endured violence in many different ways. In history, racist violence, police brutality, has been used to suppress the racial blacks and to preserve power and privileges for the white race. The practice of police brutality has a strong affect on a main segment of the American population. Those affected are minorities and the elderly causing them to have strong hatred towards the whites in America. Police brutality is abuse by law enforcement, where a police officer feels that because he/she has a badge and a gun therefore it puts them above the law and they can use unnecessary force against another individual.
Minorities in the media The media has a huge influence on the way different races are viewed by society. Misrepresentation can be defined as to give a false or misleading representation with intent to deceive or be unfair. The United States is one of, if not the most, diverse nations in the world. It is often described as a melting pot because the country is made up of so many ethnicities and races. In spite of this diversity, the media still misrepresents different races in many ways.
Moreover, further statistics show that black people are seven times more likely and Asians twice as likely to stopped by police compared to their white counterparts. Some may say that racism can be a result of a ‘canteen culture’ where some officers hold negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities and pass on their views to their colleagues which will lead in a general negative stereotype among the police force. Reiner explains that characteristics of canteen cultures include cynicism, suspicion, macho values and racism. On the other hand, the McPherson inquiry after the murder case of Stephen Lawrence concluded that the police force was institutionally racist. This meant that police procedures and culture disadvantaged non-white people in an indirectly racist way.
This is a dangerous trend that can inhibit effective law enforcement and ultimately endanger the lives of all persons who depend on law enforcement for protection. Racial profiling is a human rights violation that can affect Americans in virtually every sphere of their daily lives and often has an impact that goes far beyond the initial incident. As the testimonies summarized in this report reveal, this seemingly abundant human rights violation leaves its victims feeling humiliated, depressed, helpless, and angry. Furthermore, racial profiling reinforces residential segregation, creates fear and mistrust, and engenders reluctance in reporting crimes and cooperating with police officers. In these times of domestic insecurity,
Racial Profiling Racism unfortunately has been a huge part of our nations history, and racial profiling stems from this racist history. “Racial profiling is the police practice of focusing on members of particular race groups for extra surveillance. The most common example of racial profiling is traffic stops of young, Black men, and it appears to be most commonly employed as a drug-trafficking interdiction strategy” (Glaser 2006, 396). Some law enforcement claim that racial profiling serves a legitimate purpose in protecting security, but in my opinion all it does is cause an unproportional amount of minorities; mainly Black males, to be incarcerated. Racial profiling does exist, and I believe is quite prevalent, whether it’s a Black male being pulled over for no apparent reason, or someone of Middle-Eastern descent being “randomly” checked at an airport, racial profiling is definitely used.
The problem with the older Asian generations and the rest of American society is a long and painful past between their homeland and America. The stigma of past wounds between countries is not gone. Racism is evident for Asians just as it is with any other race. Crime reporting is down in Asian communities for fear of community backlash, familial disappointment, and the chance that local police officers will not fix the problem anyway. When the statistics show that Asian women would rather commit suicide than get divorced there is a problem within the culture and the application of police