The Pros And Cons Of Racial Profiling

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Racial profiling is a very strong issue that happens every day even when unaware. Racial profiling is defined as, “a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin” (National Institute of Justice 1). It is a disappointing part of life that certain populations of human beings face because of their race or skin color. Racism among law enforcement has led to many deaths and convictions of innocent African Americans. How can we, as Americans, make changes in order to put an end to police racial profiling that still affects this nation? There is plenty evidence that shows that even in the heart of America there is still prejudice. All a person has to do is turn on the television or…show more content…
In Just Mercy, the police officers did not care what they did to Stevenson’s rights. The gung-ho cops of this time period only assumed there was a problem because of the race or ethnicity of the persecuted. As Stevenson points out: “Opening objects in a parked vehicle was so incredibly illegal that I [Stevenson] realized he [the officer] wasn’t paying any attention to the rules, so saying something about it would be pointless” (41). These cops completely ignored Stevenson’s legal rights. They only persecuted him because he was African American and seemed, to the officers, to be doing something shady. As Stevenson stated, the officers were doing things so illegally, they paid attention to nothing but finding a reason to persecute him. In the 1980s, racial discrimination was a brutal subject African Americans had to…show more content…
This movement shows a significant step towards freedom. However, the Proclamation Emancipation did not free all slaves because it did not consider the slaves in the south or in border states. However, it showed the world that the civil war was being fought to put an end to slavery. Finally a couple years later, the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution passed on January 31, 1865 by the Congress declared that: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States” (Library of Congress 1), formally ending slavery in the United States of America. The abolishment of slavery was considered a revolution and although it freed slaves, it also triggered bitterness towards blacks from whites who could no longer, legally be superior to the blacks that were once, under their ownership. The 14th Amendment passed in 1865 gave all natural born citizens including the African Americans that had been born into slavery citizenship overruling the Dred Scott Case that had ruled that blacks were not citizens of the United States in 1857. The Fifteenth Amendment was passed in 1870 allowing African Americans to

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