Racial Profiling

11 Pages 2664 Words

rs and gang members are minorities, mostly blacks. However, a quick check into the demographics that make up these two groups of people will prove this to be very untrue. Racial profiling is based on the premise that minorities commit most drug offenses. Because of this over riding thought, police search for illegal substances primarily among black Americans, finding an uneven number actually in possession of these substances. These persons are arrested, thereby reinforcing the belief that drug
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trafficking is mostly limited to the black culture. All the while, white drivers receive far less police attention, affording the drug dealers among this group of people to go free. This adds to the perception that whites commit far fewer drug offenses than minorities. The unfortunate result is the innocent people are often persecuted based on their skin color alone. Statistics prove the use and selling of drugs are not limited to minorities in America; in fact, five times as many whites use drugs.
From the outset of the “war on drugs,” minorities
have been targeted. According to our own
governmental reports 80 percent of the country’s
cocaine users are white, and the “typical”
cocaine user is a white middle class suburbanite.
But law enforcement tactics remain concentrated
in the inner city, continuing to feed the
perception that drug dealers and users are black.
This allowed the “drug courier profile,” which
possesses racial overtones, to take hold
(Harris 7).
Media attention to this issue has been on the rise over approximately the last five years. In the past twelve months alone, front-page stories and editorials have
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appeared not only in the major national newspapers, but many local papers as well. Talk to almost any black person in the country and you will hear personal accounts of ...