Racial profiling is an issue that unfortunately continues to be prevalent in today’s society. According to Chapter 6 of CQ Researcher, racial profiling has existed since the Jim Crow era. During this period of time, African Americans were faced with abusive treatment and unjust proceedings in court by police officers. Also, Mexican – Americans in Texas and the Southwest were subjected to residential and education segregation just as African Americans. In addition, in the 1930s the U.S. forced two million people of Mexican descent to leave and there was also the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act. There is no doubt that the root of racial profiling lies in the discriminatory polices against minority groups throughout U.S. history. However, what’s even more mind boggling, is that racial profiling is ongoing in the present day. Based on a study presented in the CQ Researcher, 72 percent of those stopped in Maryland were African Americans with a vast majority of motorists stopped, also being African Americans. Currently, we see how Muslims are being treated and discriminated against with the immigration policies in place, we see how young, innocent African – American men are being treated harshly upon arrest even for minor felonies. Because of such unfair practices, we’ve witnessed the immense levels of civil unrest in states where racial profiling has become an immense problem.

Given the moral and social effects racial profiling has on minority groups, how exactly do we go about managing it or having our law enforcement held accountable for their actions? The first obvious answer to this question would be our courts. According to CQ Researcher, the courts have the obligation and the moral and legal duty to respond to concerns that the community has with racial profiling. However Jim Bueerman, Police Foundation President, states that “You don’t easily change a police department culture with a judicial ruling.” This is indeed true because despite the fact that police officers have been tried time and time again with racial profiling, there has still been a growing number of cases where law enforcement has been linked to discriminatory practices. In addition, the legal process is often so lengthy as Judge Cohen discussed in his last presentation, that it would just delay the punishment officers would have to face and so many unheard cases of racial profiling could be going on in the process. So if the courts are unable to fix the problem entirely, it then comes down to the structure of law enforcement. According to CQ researcher, “The officers should not be faulted, because their actions reflected the training they received.”  Hence, the problem lies within the system itself  as CQ researcher suggests and therefore to avoid going to the courts every time a case involves racial profiling, mayors, city governments and state legislatures should be more involved in implementing processes that would prevent racial profiling to begin with. Moreover, racism is an issue that will exist regardless but it’s up to us to become more open minded as a society, more accepting and not take anything at face value. This is easier said than done especially since it’s a social factor but it’s not impossible. Civil rights leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all fought during the 1960s against issues like these and they actually got somewhere. We live in a much easier time yes but it is also very possible that we have become so complacent when it comes to certain issues that we have taken a lot for granted. Hence, if we want to avoid a segregated America again, we need to start opening our eyes as to what’s really occurring around us.