Racial Profiling has been prominent since the 1700’s when innocent African Americans were presumed to be escaped slaves. Centuries later, racial profiling is still practiced today and is affecting many people’s lives. Some examples of present day racial profiling is when African Americans are targeted as gang members, Latin Americans being stigmatized as illegal immigrants and Muslims being subjected to an accusation on terrorism. Racial profiling is the unlawful and unjust act of assuming that an individual has a relation to crime because of their race, ethnicity, or religion, without any evidential confirmation (Opposing Viewpoints). Racial profiling is a negative law enforcement tactic that makes minorities feel unsafe, changes the victim’s …show more content…
The American Civil Liberties Union states that “Racial profiling has led countless people to live in fear, casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like, where they come from, or what religion they adhere to”. In most cases, Muslim Americans feel as if they have no way to escape the racism that has been integrated into American history. The George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations conducted “community outreach” meetings with Muslims across the nation. Muslims everywhere were being lured into trusting the government, while they were simultaneously being spied on, investigated, and sometimes prosecuted (Aziz “Racial Profiling Lead Arab Muslims to Distrust Law Enforcement”). On the other hand, if a Muslim person informs the police about suspicious activity or behavior that could be linked to terrorism, they are likely to be unfairly targeted as informants and assumed to be involved. On December 16, 2010, West High School officials in Salt Lake City, Utah directed a gang sweep in their school. A majority of the students interrogated were either African American or Latino/a. Kaleb Winston, an African American student was inaccurately addressed as a “gang tagger”. Law enforcement officers told Winston that this information would be held in a database that would only be …show more content…
“As a result of this racial profiling by their teachers and police... students lives are changed forever. Labeling them falsely... stigmatizes them in the eyes of others. More importantly assuming that they are gang members solely because of their race or ethnicity changes their view of themselves and their role in society… It only discourages students of color from seeing the school house as a place of learning and reminds them that they were born to be suspects rather than students” (Bowie “Racial Profiling Targets Innocent Children”). According to the American Psychological Association, racial profiling can cause post traumatic stress disorder and other types of stress related disorders. Although racial profiling is harmful to everyone who is affected by it, it is most damaging to colored youth. When a child is brought up in an environment where people who look just like them are constantly ridiculed for their darker complexion, they cannot help but feel like there is something wrong with them. Young African American kids are taught from day one that they need to be extra cautious around police. “Every black male I've ever met has had this talk, and it's likely that I'll have to give it one day too. There are so many things I need to tell my future son, already, before I've birthed him; so many innocuous, trite thoughts that may not