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Racial Profiling is Not a Myth

My Stance 

A major debate that was covered in class that I want to discuss is the debate on whether or not the police actually racially profile. More specifically, the debate talked about racial profiling at traffic stops but I feel that only speaking on profiling in one scenario does the topic not enough justice, as this issue is bigger than just one type of instance. Whether it is at a traffic stop, on the street, or in your own neighborhood, racial profiling is a real thing. One side of the argument holds the belief that police do racially profile and that there is a large race disparity when it comes to not only traffic stops, but deaths and arrests in the hands of police. The other side of the argument holds the belief that racial profiling is not actually present among the police, and that the police target criminals of all races, not just intentially targeting minorities or African Americans. I firmly believe that the police do, in fact, racially profile against minorities, especially African Americans. I believe this because there is too much conclusive evidence put out in the media and on the news about innocent minorities, specifically black men, dying and being victims of police brutality and racial profiling for things they did not even do. It is seen too often on social media, which everybody has nowadays in our society, that multiple black men die every year by the hands of police and there are always breakout cases like Tamir Rice and Philando Castile that spark protests and immediate calls for change. Black men do not have any breaks when it comes to living in this society, and it’s not until everyone opens their eyes and acknowledges the fact that the police racially profile that we can truly progress and make sufficient changes.

Traffic Stops Part 1

To start it off, I believe it’s important to start off with talk about traffic stops in particular, to then branch further into racial profiling as a whole. When it comes to police traffic stops, the police do have a job to let the driver know why they were pulled over and go through the regular steps necessary for it to be a reasonable stop. One thing that is not written in the rulebook is that officers have the ability to stop someone and resort to unreasonable measures and become unfair on the grounds of skin color. An NBC News article by author Erik Ortiz shined light on the obvious issue that there is an alarming amount of racial bias in traffic stops. The beginning speaks about the story of Richard Jackson, an African American Navy veteran who was stopped by a white police officer for an alleged cut off in 2016. Jackson denied the claim and was issued a citation for two other offenses that also were denied and never happened. Luckily, he fought the citations and won, but the issue still stands that an African American man was stopped and fined for no reason whatsoever, which is not a rare case. According to Ortiz (2019), a study of 100 million traffic stops between 2011 and 2017 was done, and “the results show that police stopped and searched black and Latino drivers on the basis of less evidence than used in stopping white drivers, who are searched less often but are more likely to be found with illegal items” (para. 7). The article also makes mention of the tragic deaths of men such as Walter Scott and Philando Castile, who were shot dead due to racial profiling at traffic stops, and it provides further evidence that this is far from a myth. Walter Scott was unreasonably shot down after fearing for his life from a white cop, when no other option was exhausted other than to pull out a handgun. Philando Castile was shot numerous times in his own vehicle because the cop apparently feared that Castile would discharge his firearm after he ordered him to show him his license and registration. There is no excuse for situations like this, and to look at these cases and so many others and still believe that racial profiling is not present, it just sounds absurd. The article also makes mention of studies that were done to measure other factors such as stops at different times of day, searches, and searches pertaining to marijuana. Evidently, black men are stopped at higher rates during the day which suggests that it is higher because the officer will be able to distinguish race easier. The bar for searches is also low for black and hispanic drivers, while white drivers are usually the ones who get stopped with illegal items more than anyone, and the stops for marijuana are twice as high with blacks and hispanics. These stats are nothing short of surprising anymore in our society today, but racial profiling in traffic stops are just a small piece of the pie when it comes to analyzing racial profiling as a whole.

Traffic Stops Part 2 

There are numerous studies that have been done over recent years that show the increase of racial profiling in police traffic stops all over the Unites States. An article written by Darwin BondGraham proved that black people are stopped more often by police than anyone else in the state of California. BondGraham (2020) provided statistics from studies done in 2018, and said, “According to the new data, black people are much more likely to have firearms pointed at them by police officers. They also are more likely to be detained, handcuffed and searched” (The Guardian). BondGraham also provided that over all three major parts of California (L.A., San Francisco, and San Diego), 73% of drivers stopped by their respective police departments combined were black. It is even worse of a statistic to hear when it is afterwards mentioned that in all three of those areas combined, black people only make up 20% of the population. For African Americans to only make up a small percentage in a state and be part of a gigantic percentage of stoppage rates, something does not add up and there is a slim chance that all of those stops were reasonable and contained no form of racial profiling. The numbers do not match, and when it is realized that white people get found with illegal items more than black people on fewer searches, it appears that there is too much focus on the wrong group of people and nothing is being changed. BondGraham (2020) also provides a quote from Alberto Retana, who is the CEO of the Community Coalition of Los Angeles. Retana says, “black people in particular, and Latinos, are fearful of the police and are constantly having their dignity compromised by unwarranted stops and searches”. Some people will see racial profiling or stops based on race as preemptive measures, but the problem with this is that this measure is dehumanizing black and hispanic people and essentially doing the exact opposite of what the police should do. The well known job of the police of course is to protect and serve, but we cannot expect that job to be carried out when minorities do not feel protected and justice is never served for the irresponsibleness of countless police stops and searches. It is scarring for many black and hispanic people to be stopped and/or profiled by police based on their skin color because these are the people who are supposed to be protecting the community, when in reality this racial profiling does its share of tearing down the community.

The Bigger Picture

To further branch out with the topic of racial profiling in police traffic stops, the numbers still stay high when it comes to racial profiling in general. Author Kia Makarechi wrote the article titled “What the Data Really Says about Police and Racial Bias”, which provides more than enough statistics and facts about police are really doing in America that no one wishes to talk about. One interesting point Makarechi included was from a study done by the Center for Policing Equity between 2011 and 2015 in regards to forecul police stops. The study found that, “African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account” (Vanity Fair). As stated before, there is no real excuse as to why African Americans experience more abuse in police stops than anyone else, considering anybody can be the same threat level police may perceive black people to be. The way someone is stopped by the police should not be because of skin color, it should be because of the level of offense and what it is perceived to be. Most of the time, which Makarechi (2016) also included, people of color will be stopped when no incident has even occurred. Stats like these are too abundant to be made up and are too prevalent when discussing the topic of racial profiling by the police, so it is mind-blowing to figure out why there are people that simply dismiss these facts and garner the reasons why it somehow isn’t racial profiling. In Oakland, California, a study was done to also research the number of white people handcuffed compared to black people, and the numbers are not even remotely close. Without actually arresting anyone, police in that study handcuffed only 72 white people, while the number of black people reached a staggering 1,466. It was even reported that when it came to these stops, you would be able to tell two-thirds of the time who was getting arrested based on  skin color by the verbatim used by the officers. Seeing as though the use of language is yet another factor in the racial profiling argument, there is increasingly more information to prove that it is not just something made up to claim racism. Racial profiling by the police is something that is actually happening in front of everyone’s eyes, whether one chooses to see it or not.

Traffic Stops Part 3

An article titled “Racial Profiling: Past, Present, and Future?” by David A. Harris speaks more on the issue of racial profiling in the police and goes more in depth on the topic, especially at traffic stops and searches. One major part of this article is that it refutes certain ideas about the opposing argument of racial profiling, and proves that saying that it does not exist has its limitations. Harris (2020) mentioned the hypothesis of Miami police Captain Marshall Frank, which stated, “African Americans commit most of the serious crimes, and until that changed, police should continue to use profiling. It was the smart thing to do” (American Bar Association). This hypothesis was mainly stated off of the fact that there was an increase of African Americans being jailed, but that’s not to say those were lawful arrests, or arrests that should have occurred in the first place. Frank’s hypothesis was refuted with the introduction of “hit rates”, which were studied closely in places that put much focus on blacks and hispanics. According to Harris (2020), “In jurisdictions using racial targeting in their stops and searches, police hit more often when they stopped and searched whites than when they searched either blacks or Latinos”. Back to the claim that many people believe in regards to racial profiling or “closely watching” black and hispanics is necessary because they “do most of the crime”, it is clearly refuted with this study. This preemptive measure to closely monitor blacks and hispanics ended up taking a big toll on hit rates and lowered the accuracy by great amounts, considering there is no focus on white people who are clearly the ones who, when hit, are successfully hit. More hit rate data is provided by Harris, and he stated, “In every police agency in which measurement had occurred, the use of race-based stops and searches rendered police efforts less effective than policing that did not reference race. In departments using profiling, hits among blacks and Latinos were not higher than hits among whites; they were not the same as hits among whites” (American Bar Association). The evidence brought up even showed that the number of hits among blacks and Latinos were actually far lower, and it proved that racial profiling tactics were just plain ineffective. Almost all of what Harris explained in terms of research further backed the fact that racial profiling actually does exist, and evidence provided that police actually acnknowledged this as an actual police force tactic. Not only is it even acknowledged, but it proves to be rather useless and it is still being used among different police departments on the grounds that it just has to work. Then, for Captain Frank to mention that with that claim there is no racism involved, it sounds pretty absurd considering if you’re backing the claim that racial profiling needs to be present in the police force, that is blatant racism. Also mentioned, if racial profiling and stops on the grounds of skin color are to continue, there is no way that it can continue without accountability being taken by officers who practice these tactics and fail to do their job successfully.

Racism as a Whole 

Another limitation in the viewpoint that racial profiling is not a thing and everyone is targeted is the fact that not only is racial profiling very much alive and being carried out, it is actually just a cover term. Author Jelani Cobb wrote the article “No Such Thing as Racial Profiling” is more of a backhanded reading towards people who do not believe in the term, but actually does state that it is not a correct one. Cobb (2014) emphasizes, “Nothing better illustrates the slick, manipulative power of euphemism than the fact that our dialogue takes seriously this non-term. There is no such thing as “racial profiling”—there is simply racism” (The New Yorker). The claim is basically Cobb saying that you may say that racial profiling is real, or you can even say it isn’t, but if you don’t believe in the term then that is ok because it’s just a newer term for racism. Cobb just wants people to call it what it is because in reality, yes it is true that racial profiling is simply racism at its finest. What we choose to say about the definition and description of examples regarding racial profiling, are generally one in the same with racism since it is basically the same thing. I agree and I believe that generally the term racial profiling is just a more proper way of saying something is racism in certain circumstances. It sounds a bit loose when talking about crooked police officers unlawfully harassing a black or hispanic person and saying “this is racism”, whereas now society has become more accustomed now to saying that in those situations, it’s a case of racial profiling. Cobb also refutes the limitation of saying that racial profiling is an outcome of black crime and this is why we have reactionary policing. Cobb (2014) states, “When, in 1906, whites began wrestling black passengers from streetcars and murdering them in the streets of downtown Atlanta, sparking three days of riots and resulting in dozens of black casualties, a specious wave of black crime was cited as the basis for their actions” (The New Yorker). Waves of black crime were simply always just displayed outrage of immoral acts committed by white people. It is impossible to say that black crime is the cause of all of this and if it never happened, maybe things would change, because for so many decades, everything that black people have done to try and gain respect has been in retaliation to injustices shown by white people. It has to be common knowledge by now that white people have been the antagonists in terms of why this fight for black lives is even a thing, because it should not be a debate anymore that black lives must matter. Racial profiling, or racism, is no longer arguable as to whether or not it exists because it is clear understanding now that not everyone is being targeted one in the same. Blacks and hispanics, as noted in all articles, and pretty much almost all studies, are the ones primarily focused on and targeted when their crime numbers don’t even precede over those of whites in basically all categories. Studies have much dominance over opinions as we cannot argue against facts, but even the portrayal of racial profiling in the media is no coincidence, and is mainly used to get people to open their eyes and realize that this is real.

Fruitvale Station

One resource that I would encourage readers to view to explore more on the topic of racial profiling is the movie Fruitvale Station starring Michael B. Jordan. It follows the true story about Oscar Grant, a 22 year old black man who was involved in a police altercation on his way home from celebrating New Year’s Eve with his family and friends. Spoiler ahead, but Oscar Grant ended up being shot and killed by a white police officer during the altercation. The movie is very emotional and it highlights the harsh reality that police do show racial profiling at any given chance, and it can be over the smallest situations. Oscar Grant only wished to be able to go home with his family that day and was unreasonably stopped, and unreasonably killed by the hands of the police. It also makes the viewer reflect on how seriously these situations must be taken, and for me especially, I self-reflected a lot when watching the movie. This portrayal of a young man’s true story is not just a media message, this is a wake-up call for change to occur because there has not been any efficient change at all in decades. Black lives still do not matter to America and it is sickening how through all of the fights every year, it is not fully grasped and people still turn the other cheek.

The Hate U Give 

The next resource that I suggest to readers who want to know more about the topic of racial profiling is to watch the movie The Hate U Give. This movie, just as emotional as the other previously mentioned, is about a young black girl who watched her best friend get shot and killed by the police and becomes a powerful activist who demands justice in the system. There was a character in the movie who made a great point and said something about white people accepting diversity, but it can’t be too much, and I agree with that statement so much. I believe that white people do want diversity in some aspects and will acknowledge it, but what black people really want in this society, white people are not willing to give it up. We, as minorities, do demand more representation and it is unfair to have to fight for decades for something that is honestly a basic human right. Everyone deserves to be seen and heard, but cancelling out these voices and a whole race of people is despicable. The movie does a great job of touching the heart and making someone want to get up and make change. I believe that these two movies are most definitely a must see and even if your eyes are already opened to the social injustices of racial profiling in America already, it is never a bad thing to sit back and learn more about what can be done.

Wrap-up 

Furthermore, all of the information above on the topic of racial profiling is from research and studies done in the 2010’s up to 2020. To sum it up, racial profiling is alive and well in this country, and there is little to no evidence at all that can sincerely prove otherwise. It is shown in cases every year, different studies and statistics, books, and movies that racial profiling exists and is something that has to change. Surely everyone is targeted by police at one point as a whole, but the truth is, blacks and hispanics are targeted much more and at higher rates. Racial profiling is one struggle in this country that will take a long time to tackle fully, but can never end. If we give up on this fight to end racial profiling and racism overall, nothing in this country will change, and we are long overdue for change.