Racial profiling has a long history in the past. Since the ratification of Thirteenth Amendment, African-Americans did not receive the proper respect within the society. They fought against the Jim Crow laws and protested to earn their civil rights. Hispanics and Mexicans also had to fight against injustice when Texas became a state. Even though they were the indigenous people there for generation, the white imperialism over their land made them like the foreigners. The treaty after the Mexico-America War did not grant them citizenships right away. White settlers treated them unfairly and deported them as illegal immigrants.

 

In today’s society, Hispanics and African-Americans are still the main population subjected to racial profiling. For example, “… 53 percent of those stopped were African-Americans and 32 percent Hispanics.” (384) under New York’s Stop-and-Frisk law. These numbers are alarming high for two minority groups. Some experts argued that this law helped New York to lower the murder rate. But in reality, there is not much difference in murder rate with and without the Stop-and-Frisk law. This law can only build more distrust between police and minority community. The development of distrust is bad for the growth of the society overall. When the people started to doubt the integrity of police, this caused people to question the motive of police for anything. This is hard for police to perform their services and start more active patrolling.

 

Court’s involvement in racial profiling is helpful to set up a statement for the public. Nevertheless, it is up to police to enforce the decision. Often times, the police tends to ignore the statement because they are very “stressed” on the job. It is easier to write on paper than acting it out. I agree with a statement in Urban Issues, “… some racial profiling critics say remedies may be more effective if crafted by law enforcement agencies themselves.” (387) If the police department can set up the requirements to stop a person, then it will become more lucid to every police. Police departments should also trained police more strategy to de-escalate the situations. Body camera can also help the police force to learn from their actions. Many cases in Black Lives Matter movement can be de-escalated. I strongly believe that a police’s life is as important as a citizen’s life. With more friendly approaches, many cases can be solved with no causality. Personally I just found Tamir Rice case outrageous. How can possibly a 12 years old hurt anyone even with a real gun? Any 12 years old would be scared if a police tells them to do anything.

 

Racial profiling will not end unless there is no more prejudgment in this world. We can only try to reduce racial profiling with more police training and technology to check the power of police.