Racial Profiling: Just What Does It Mean, And How Does it Impact Civil Rights In The United States?

Racial profiling is been a concern in the United States for many years. Even after the achievements of the civil rights movement, black Americans are still frequently treated as suspects by police officers –regardless of whether they’ve actually done anything or not. Over the past decade, racial profiling and police brutality have both become more prominent – perhaps because of the existence of cell phones for capturing images and videos of these occurrences.

Prejudice revolves around preconceived notions that an individual has about a particular race or group. For instance, many police officers frequently assume that virtually any black man they see walking on the street at night must be a criminal. Both of these attitudes ultimately lead to discrimination, which is when individuals – such as police officers – treat another individual unequally because of their race.

There are those who believe that police often abuse their authority and treat minority groups with brutality. And there certainly is a good deal of evidence – as seen from video footage captured from various incidents – that says that police officers do often use excessive force in which they – at a minimum – violate the rights of suspects and at worst end up killing them.

All too often, police officers use vague justifications to explain why they are apprehending the suspect. At the core of this is racial profiling, which allows police officers to consciously or subconsciously bring their own racism and prejudices to their work.

Brian Claypool on man removed from Delta flight: “This incident is about two words: racial profiling.” #oreillyfactor pic.twitter.com/4BI4qPYbSv

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 22, 2016

When coupled with the fact that recent Supreme Court decisions have made it easier for the police to use the stop and frisk method – which previously would have been seen as a violation of the Fourth Amendment, the police sometimes seem more like an occupying force in a neighborhood, rather than its protector.

If this problem were only a thing of the past, it would be a matter for historians. However, many recent events of made it clear that racial profiling is still an ongoing issue. According to the Washington Post, only a few years ago a Harvard University professor named Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was confronted by a police officer in his own home when a neighbor reported seeing a black man near the home and thought a potential robbery was occurring.

Interestingly in this case of apparent racial profiling, had Gates been outside the home when this occurred there is a reasonable chance that the sergeant involved would have arrested him on the spot, since being outside one’s home removes protections against illegal search and seizure.

As noted by the BBC, Another incident that many people argue was based on racial profiling recently occurred in Ferguson, Missouri. In August of 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot and killed a man named Michael Brown. This incident created a firestorm across the nation and massive riots in the town of Ferguson.

Once again, the police had one story and the witnesses had another. Although Wilson claims that Brown attacked him while in his car, eyewitnesses on the scene have testified that Brown had his hands in the air surrendering when he was shot.

The resulting riots left much of the city in ruins. A similar case recently occurred in New York with a young black man named Eric Garner. In this incident, Garner was illegally selling cigarettes on the street when he was confronted by a police officer who used a chokehold on the asthmatic Garner. As a result, Garner suffocated and died.

There have been a number of similar cases in recent years of law officers using profiling – based on their own racism and prejudice – to apprehend black individuals without just cause. These officers frequently use excessive force, which sometimes results in death.

From an individual standpoint, there is no denying that this kind of behavior by the police makes them seem much less trustworthy. Whether one is black or not, knowing that police officers can basically – and with impunity – violate the law and an individual’s rights is a deeply disturbing realization. It even makes one less likely to call the police in an emergency, since it’s difficult to know exactly what they might do.

The problem of racial profiling in the United States is a long-standing one that has yet to be entirely resolved. Centuries of ingrained racism and prejudice have embedded this mindset deeply within both the minds of individual police officers and police department policies.

[Featured Image by Pete Souza/White House via Getty Images]