This week, we watched a documentary about immigration wars
of 2007-2008 in Prince William Country-- 9500 Liberty. The recorder showed us
one of the tougher local immigration enforcement laws in the land. After
watching this film, a serious issue and topic has been brought up in mind,
which is Racial Profiling. "Racial Profiling" refers to the
discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals
for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or
national origin. In the film, the Country granted a law which requires the
police officers to stop and question people of color, who appear to be
undocumented immigrants. Apparently, from most whites' point of view, this
seemed to be a logic and reasonable law for safety, however, if we bring it to
a general level which involves everyone-- people of color or colorless, this
would be a very offensive and racist institutional act.
After the civil rights movement of the 1950 dismissed
explicitly racist laws, racism became colorblind to survive. However, it did
not mean that the issue was resolved, and thereby, we already lived in a
ideological society with an absolute racism-free zone. On the contrary, the
issues of racial profiling went underground, which made it more complex and
hard to settle down. Nowadays, although no law explicitly allows for racial
profiling by law enforcement, it still related to the institutions. For
instance, the Supreme Court's first step to sanction racial profiling was Terry
v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), an 8-1 ruling that developed the "reasonable
suspicion" standard. The Court, held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition
on "unreasonable searches and seizures" is not violated when a police
officer has "reasonable suspicion" "in light of his
experience" that a crime has been committed. By opening the door to
greater law enforcement discretion with respect to whom to sop and search, the
Supreme Court in Terry gave its first approval of racial profiling.
As a result of this deep, underground racial prejudice among
the institutions, lots of people was victimized by it, and it is becoming a
potential danger to people of color in their daily life. One of the worst
outcome of racial profiling is the ultimate death of the victims. Jonny Gammage, 31 year-old
African American male, died on October 12, 1995, after being pulled over by five
police officers from a predominately white community. Those police officers
indicated that Gammage started to struggle with them which was the reason he
got killed, however, a witness indicated that he saw one officer started the
fight and while Gammage lay on the pavement under their command, the others
began to kick and hit at him. First fact of this incident, the police officers
are all white, and the victim was black. Secondly, the reason that police
officers stopped Gammage's car at the first place was due to his race.
Moreover, the brutal and unreasonable act of the five police officers was based
on their personal prejudice toward people of Color. Therefore, there is no
doubt that racial profiling is the major cause of this tragic incident.
The most outrageous problem about racial profiling is not
only the tragic incidents and victims, but the fact that only a few people
recognized this issue among our society. It has been covered up or twisted by
the authorities or someone with a strong sense of racial prejudice for too
long. Thereby, it is our duty to reveal the truth to public. We must find a way
to undermine the discrimination towards people of color, otherwise, the
American Dream would fall.
http://articles.latimes.com/1995-11-16/news/mn-3792_1_police-officers
http://www.digplanet.com/wiki/Terry_v._Ohio
Thank you for your post Kexin; many people fail to realize how deeply imbedded in our "justice" systems racial profiling is. For me, it seems to relate directly to the the sensory aspect of racism as eplained by Mark Smith. Racial profiling allows those in power to go by gut feelings and looks rather thna logically looking for a problem and a situation. It removes the guilt from the situation and ignores the hyporcrisy/fragility of the beliefs that lead to their decisions of justice.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching 9500 Liberty, I was so surprised by the outward racial discrimination and profiling that immediately happened. In my opinion, most of their beliefs seemed so ignorant and had little factual backing. One of the complaints of the residents in the town was the fact that they played Latin music loudly, and that was a sign of someone who was undocumented. It could actually be someone who was Cuban or just enjoyed the music!
However, since we have began racial profiling, we can just ignore the fallacies of our beliefs that invite violence, destruction, and harm for Latin@s. We have essentialized the experiences of Latin@s or anyone resembling them as "illegal/legal" and, thus, ignored the complexities of their experiences.
Great topic Kexin--and one that seems to coincide with Lauren's previous post on Due Process and the inequalities associated with our criminal justice system. The issue of racial profiling in the documentary "9500 Liberty" calls attention to the power invested in individual bias. Due process certainly cannot thrive in a climate of suspicion based on the color of one's skin. As you have addressed, the logical outcome of this legal oversight is a "turning-the-other-cheek" to violence perpetrated against the bodies of those an individual agent of the law has deemed illegal and thus, inhuman.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a major problem (as evidenced by the sheer number of people talking about it in our readings [many, but I'll say Coates] and examples of violence stemming from this like the example you provided) but certainly not a new one. People have, through the power of their positions, showed their biases in strong and violent or hurtful ways. An example from class would be from 9500 Liberty, also mentioned by you. As another example, remember "social evolution"? After someone proposed a genetic basis for cultural or individual behavior (giving rise to "social Darwinism"), people, often criminals as they were already captured and unable to escape, were sterilized (often without knowing) based on supposed deviance from the behavioral "norm" by using the idea of "improving the genetic quality of the population." A hugely disproportionate amount of these people were women and/or non-"white." These practices began to lose popularity after they inspired one Adolf Hitler.
ReplyDelete--Forest Copeland
Kexin,
ReplyDeleteRacial profiling is definitely a hard topic to discuss so I think it's important that you have brought it up. Like 9500 Liberty, Alabama Shame reminded me a lot of how deeply entrenched racial profiling is in society's, and in this case, specifically Alabama. I find it difficult (although not surprising) to believe that a law like HB-56 is able to pass and be implemented in today's world. HB-56 seems like a more fancy/masked way of stating "I have a get out of jail free card" to make assumptions about Latinos and jump to the conclusion they are undocumented. This anti-immigrant law have caused serious consequences and hardships to countless amounts of families. The idea that people aren't treated like human beings and it's considered acceptable and reinforced by the law is hard to swallow. I think people often forget that America was founded by foreigners, therefore making us all 'newcomers'.
-Gabby Castriota
Great topic to blog on. I feel that racial profiling as you stated is an extremely in humane act of policing. By covering it up and saying the actual act is due to reasonable suspicion. Growing up as an African American women in Birmingham Al ,somewhere where this issue is very prevalent, I have to disagree with the notion of reasonable suspicion, because the only person who looks like they are committing a crime is a person of color. This is just on my own personal experiences with the justice system as well as racial profiling. I've been stopped on account of first my tent being to dark which in turn led to a search of my entire car own account of my car supposedly smelling of marijuana, let me just say who totally inappropriate and inaccurate this statement was but all in all nothing was found but the feeling of being racially profiled like that is something I'll never forget. I does not happen like this in all cases but from a personal stand point I know these allegations to be very real as well as unfair to the African American community.
ReplyDeleteGreat topic to blog on. I feel that racial profiling as you stated is an extremely in humane act of policing. By covering it up and saying the actual act is due to reasonable suspicion. Growing up as an African American women in Birmingham Al ,somewhere where this issue is very prevalent, I have to disagree with the notion of reasonable suspicion, because the only person who looks like they are committing a crime is a person of color. This is just on my own personal experiences with the justice system as well as racial profiling. I've been stopped on account of first my tent being to dark which in turn led to a search of my entire car own account of my car supposedly smelling of marijuana, let me just say who totally inappropriate and inaccurate this statement was but all in all nothing was found but the feeling of being racially profiled like that is something I'll never forget. I does not happen like this in all cases but from a personal stand point I know these allegations to be very real as well as unfair to the African American community.
ReplyDelete