Racial Profiling Of Mexican-Americans

This essay will focus on the racial profiling of Mexican-Americans in the Los Angeles community. The parts of Los Angeles I will be focusing in are South Central, Compton, Watts and East LA. Racial profiling consists of the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. The main suspects that racially profile Mexican-Americans are law enforcement authorities. Racial profiling is a repressive social practice that uses group characteristics to individualize stereotypic behavior for minorities in American society. The practice of racial profiling victimizes minority persons to support a White hegemonic structure that promotes White values and beliefs as superior. The harmful effects of racial profiling

A case of hard profiling would be when an officer sees a Mexican-American person and without more to go on, pulls him over for a pat-down on the chance that he may be carrying drugs or weapons. Soft profiling is using race as one factor among others in gauging criminal suspiciousness: the highway police, for example, have intelligence that a Cuban is transporting drugs in a Nissan Pathfinder. A police officer then sees a Cuban motorist speeding in a Pathfinder and pulls him over in the hope of finding drugs. Basically, the police officers are pulling people over that look similar to the description they were given of the drug trafficker or whatever the situation may

However there are two stories to racial profiling, everyone always focus on the victim’s life but never on the officers’. Law enforcements also have families to live for. Therefore, police officers say they often have to make split-second decisions while staying safe. "First, when officers arrive, they have to think of their own safety," said Anthony Miranda, executive chairman of the National Latino Officers Association of America. "Secondly, they think about public safety and from there they should make a decision. The problem is that in the discussions we are having is that officials abuse their authority" (CNN News). With that said, both parties are seeking for safety. There are times when you don’t know how the cop pulling you over is going to react. He might be calm or passive aggressive. It’s like playing a Russian roulette game. Also vice versa, how is the person being pulled over going to react? Is the person innocent or a criminal, or under the substance of any rugs that might have an effect on how he/she reacts when being stopped. Many questions come into play and it’s a matter of seconds that it takes to for either opponent to