Institutionalized Racial Profiling

The United States has changed immensely since slave time. Although the prejudice isn’t nearly as extreme as it was during slavery and the Jim Crow era, it is still ongoing. People who were raised with prejudice and racism in their homes are likely to pass the same ideals onto their children. So no matter how far we come as a society, there will always be some level of prejudice that exists. Things are certainly better than they were in the 60s and we have come a long way since then, however we still have work to do. The high African-American unemployment rate, police brutality, and racial profiling are just a few examples of the prejudice that exists today stemming from preconceived notions of African Americans. For over 367 years we had institutionalized

In the What Would You Do? Episode: Teen Vandals, they showed 2 different groups of teen boys vandalizing a car in the middle of a busy park. One of the group of boys were white and the other group were black. While the white teens were spray painting the car and smashing it with a bat, only 1 passerby called 911 and a good number of people confronted them and asked them what they were up to. Most people just strolled on by as if they didn’t notice. This all changed when the teens were black however. Ten 911 calls were made but barely anybody confronted the teens. When they were asked why people claimed they were afraid they would be overtaken, yet people had no issues confronting the white boys. What I got out of this is that the people thought the black teens are more intimidating and violent than white teens. This is just one example of racial profiling however. African Americans experience prejudice while shopping as well. There was another clip of What Would You Do? That we were able to watch in class showing this stereotypical prejudice. The clip showed a black man dressed “suburban” shopping in a high end store. The sales clerk, a white man was making horrible comments to him. He would say things like “people like you come in here and steal things” or “I’m sure you can’t afford that.” Some people came to the mans defense but unfortunately some people actually agreed with the sales clerk. Even Oprah, one of the richest — and, incidentally, most recognizable — women in the world, was refused a $38,000 handbag while visiting a Swiss store in 2013. Not only that, but also in a 2013 Pew Research Center poll, 46% of black people reported unfair treatment in stores and restaurants, compared to only 16 percent of white people. The fact that African-Americans have to be aware of the kind of clothes they were and the way they act in stores in order to not be