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Nicolas David Cruz-Araujo

Ms. Sanchez

ERWC Period 3

20 October 2016

A Time in our Lives: Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling is not necessary because it violates our constitutional rights and law

enforcement are profiling in an unjustly manner. There have been many examples of racial

profiling in our history, especially in times of war. When the attacks on Pearl Harbor sparked a

racist attack on all Japanese Americans that may not be loyal to the U.S. and in present day when

police abuse their power and violate our civil liberties.

Racial profiling is going against our constitutional rights by violating the 4th and 14th

amendment. There are many examples of our constitutional rights being violated, like the Patriot

Act This policy allows laws to be made in violation of the First Amendment rights of

Muslims(Pitt). Now these policies are just blatant demonstration of racial profiling as well as

trying to take the rights from a certain group of people. In other words, this a completely

unnecessary form of racial profiling, that is being used to single out and abuse a certain group of

people. This wasn't the first time that we as Americans have decided to take away rights from

people who live in the U.S., one example was during WWII when Japanese immigrants were

often denied citizenship because they were profiled as not being loyal to the United States

(Pitt). We knew that this was morally incorrect, but we thought it was justified because of what

happened at Pearl Harbor. Sometimes we let our emotions get in the way of what is right, and

this was just another example of U.S. citizens denying the right of future citizens and violating
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the rights of current Americans. And it is not just the ordinary American a big part of it is the law

enforcement and their abuse of power.

Many will argue that the law enforcement abuse the power given to them by the law.

Lately there has been a great deal of news regarding an injustice in police departments, like a

couple of years ago when a judge ruled that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police

Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city [the judge] said that

police relied on what she called a policy of indirect racial profiling(Rhymes). There has been a

collection of different police department that have secretly practiced racial profiling as a way to

find criminals. This has been one of the biggest injustices in our communities and there is still

seems to be no sign of hope. In this situation some officers have a certain way of investigating

possible suspects, let's say someone gets stopped and who is being investigated by law

enforcement for probable cause as well as race, ethnicity, or national origin(Corlett). How

could a probable cause to be stopped and investigated possibly be related to your race or even

national origin. This is just another scenario of what usually happens on a day to day basis in our

country.

Because of the violation of our civil rights has well as the law enforcement being corrupt

and misusing their power to take advantage of the citizens of the United States, Racial profiling

should be considered unnecessary and completely immoral.

Works Cited

Pitt, Cassady. U.S. Patriot Act and Racial Profiling: Are There Consequences of
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Discrimination? Michigan Sociological Review, vol.25, no.1,2011, 53-55.

Rhymes, Edward. Federal Judge Says What We Already Know: Racial Profiling Is

Unconstitutional. MintPress News 13 Aug. 2013

http://www.mintpressnews.com/federal-judge-says-what-we-already-know-racial-profilin

g-is-unconstitutional/166909/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2016.

Corlett, J. Angelo. Profiling Color The Journal of Ethics, vol.15, no.1, 2011, 21-32.