Sample Descriptive Essay: What is Racial Profiling

Racial profiling refers to implementing an action for reasons of security which rationale is solely based on the person’s racial background including skin color, religion, place of origin, ancestry, or any combination of these variables, singling out an individual for greater inspection.

In other words, guilty on the grounds of being a social deviance in the eyes of the authority.

Racial profiling is often confused with criminal profiling because of the concerns for safety and security, however, criminal profiling is a lot more reasonable than racial profiling because the former seeks to scrutinize a specific individual on the grounds of matching a criminal profile, while the latter increases a person’s chance of being profiled just because of presumptions regarding his or her racial descent. That is exactly where the injustice lies. Regardless if a person does not match a specific criminal profile, the mere fact that he or she has a slightly darker shade of skin color, then that person has a high chance of being asked to step aside for greater scrutiny. As mentioned, racial profiling and criminal profiling are closely related, making the practice of this type of discrimination prolific in policing. In the discussion is the fact that police brutality exists, and so does guilt by association. People who have the authority to safeguard the safety of the public, equipped with negative presumptions about discriminated groups (institutional racism) often commit the said fallacy, and this is the principal effect of institutional discrimination. Even though a person who has the authority to guard public safety was not offended nor experienced some sort of phenomenon that will inculcate a negative impression of a certain race, it is still possible for that someone to commit racial prejudice because of institutional discrimination - something that is passed on from the older generations to the last, and it seems like it will be never-ending.

Unless, we just decide to stop, but we all know that, chances are, it is impossible.

Many of us choose to ignore the fact that racial profiling keeps on existing because of what was conditioned in our minds via various forms of covert racism. We consciously acknowledge that we do not tolerate racism, however, unconsciously, we just keep on absorbing subtle hints of racial slurs, such as how someone completely unharmed would not like any form of association with her Latina neighbor because her kids might influence her kids, or how someone would walk away from some place where people of color is having a loud chattering, despite it just being a simple gathering, talking, reminiscing, and just having fun. Actually, even those who have tattooed sleeves, even if they are not black or anything else, would often get misconstrued as drug users or violent people just because they have tattoos, when in fact, that tattooed man adopted two homeless dogs or cats he saw somewhere.

The problem with everybody is we are too quick to add assumptions based on what we see, racist or not. We see a woman driving, someone will automatically think she is likely to get into an accident. We see a young man watering his plants, someone will immediately assume he is a homosexual. We see someone with a scar across his cheek, someone will automatically think that he has been in a fight some time ago, despite the idea that that man could have died if he did not jump out of his apartment because of the building he was living in was on fire, and that is how he got that scar.

Racial profiling is just one of the tenets of the collective personality of modern society. This is not just a fight for racial minorities anymore, it is actually a fight against our own minds. This is a choice. We can just end the fear of those who are being oppressed if we can stop seeing them as different, and this is probably the most difficult war we have to conquer.