racial Profiling
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Racial Profiling:
"YOUR DAMNED IF YOU DO AND DAMNED IF YOU DON'T"
From the infamous beating of Rodney King to the recent shooting of Amadou Diallo racial profiling in the United States has become more apparent. For some, it is proven, by the ever-growing population of convicted black felons to be a reliable form of capturing criminals. It is however a prevalent sign of the ever lingering problem of racism and human degradation in this country.
Racial profiling is a discriminatory practice used by the police to capture criminals. It heavily relies on both many stereotypes and generalizations. The illegal practice victimizes many minority communities especially the black communities. It is said that "about thirty percent or more of Black men are in prisons across America today"(Mikal Muharrar, paragraph 3). These statistics suggest that minorities are guilty of "blackface" which means in racial terms, through indirect association. Once portrayed in "blackface", the "blackness" of the problem encourages suspicion, polarizing antagonism, and typically leads to the targeting of the racial group for punitive action. These assumptions then lead to an innocent person behind bars who, because of the same generalizations and stereotypes working against minorities in the beginning and which are still at work in the justice system, will have a slim chance of not being sentenced...