by Kammall Moore, student at William Fleming High School, Roanoke, VA
In this day and age, one of the major obstacles faced by minorities, specifically black males, is becoming a victim of racial profiling. The National Institute of Justice defines this as “a practice that targets people for suspicion of a crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.” Although it has been a hot button issue for ages, the term “racial profiling” sparked national debate in 1998 when a routine traffic in stop New Jersey resulted in the shooting of three young and unarmed men of color. The officers involved with shooting stated the driver attempted to run them over.
In retaliation, the New Jersey State Troopers fired eleven rounds of ammunition into the vehicle. As a result, the two state troopers were indicted on multiple attempted murder and assault charges. The two state troopers were also charged with falsifying their activity logs to hide the high number of minorities they stopped on what seemed like a daily basis, perhaps to cover up their practice of racial profiling. This incites one to ponder “If you are not practicing racial profiling, then what is there to cover up?” Even in more recent news, the shooting death of Mike Brown in Missouri and that of Trayvon Martin in Florida are proof that “racial profiling” is a big issue that is not going away any time soon.
After decades of civil rights movements, some felt like the plight of racism faced by blacks had vanished. However, it merely transformed itself into a facade that was supposedly created to rid our proud nation of “criminals”. Instead, it reinstated the fear that at any given moment, a peaceful afternoon could turn into a tragedy ending with another dead black man. Some police, who by the way swore to protect and serve, use this tactic to intimidate and humiliate men of color. This is not to say that every white police officer is racist, nor is it to say that every black man is a victim. However, more than often, black men are killed in senseless acts of violence perpetrated by police officers. Racist police officers need to separate their personal feelings of anger against minorities from their responsibilities as sworn officers of the law.
To further expand on the unfair treatment of minorities by law enforcement, over the last decade the Boston Police Department has been implementing a “Stop and Frisk” initiative. This policy states that a police officer can stop a person, they feel is a person of interest, and proceed to partake in a nonintrusive search of one’s person. Statistics show , in Boston 63% of Boston P.D. and civilian encounters, concerning the “Stop and Frisk” policy, from 2007-2010 involved African Americans. In spite of this startling find, the 2010 United States of America Census reports that only 24.4% of Bostonians’ are African American. One could argue it feels like the police are intentionally singling out black people; doesn’t it seem as if the officers are “looking for a needle in a haystack?” Reports also show 75% of these encounters received no justification.
This and countless other instances, show that this abomination is still very prevalent in today’s society. In my opinion, the U.S. is lucky that after George Zimmerman was not indicted for the murder of Trayvon Martin, we did not see the likes of another L.A. Riot. To further divulge my personal opinion, the “riots” we saw in Ferguson after the shooting death of Mike Brown in late 2014 are just inklings of what is to come if the lives of more young African Americans are mercilessly taken. And on the subject of the recent Mike Brown shooting, one has yet to ask the question, “What was Mike Brown doing in this situation in the first place? He had no business going into a store and stealing anything; without a shadow of a doubt, what he did was morally wrong. However, was what officer Darren Wilson did justifiable? I think not. It was argued that Mike Brown had an overwhelming height and weight advantage, which forced Officer Wilson to use his firearm. Am I to believe that an armed and very well trained officer of the law was afraid of an unarmed “kid” just because Mike Brown was bigger than him? I would never fall for something so erroneous nor would I expect anyone else to.
In conclusion, I guess the only way to end racial profiling is to let the government know that if the perpetrators of these atrocities and blatant violations of basic human rights are not reprimanded, then we, as African Americans, will resort to sit-ins and movements much like those of the Civil Rights Movements led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. I say that because, yet again the rights of our people are being violated. However, we do need to instill in the youth of today that guns and drugs are not the way. Hopefully by doing this, they will give police officers even less of a reason to bother them.
