According to a 1999 Gallup Poll Social Audit on Black/White Relations in the United States, 59% of the individuals polled, believed that racial profiling is a widespread problem. This discriminatory practice is more commonly referred to as racial profiling, where police officers stop racial or ethnic groups under the assumption that they are more likely to commit certain types of crimes. Statistics reveal that law enforcement officers have stopped more than four out of ten African Americans because of their race. While the definition of racial profiling may differ from region to region, it is more likely to occur among individuals living in urban rather than suburban or rural parts of the country.
An unsurprising, but observable factor in the poll was that participant responses also differed among racial lines. Seventy-seven percent of African Americans believe that racial profiling is a nationwide problem, compared to 56% of whites. And, almost three-quarters of young black men between the ages of 18 and 34 reported having been stopped by police because of their race or ethnic background. African Americans, however, are not the only ethnic members of society who have been targets of racial profiling. One in five Hispanics and Asian men also report being the victims of racially motivated stops by officers of the law.
Between March 8 and April 22, 2001, the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and researchers from Harvard University, conducted random interviews that included 315 Hispanics, 323 African Americans and 254 Asians to determine the extent of racial profiling. This survey further supports the Gallop Poll Audit conducted two years earlier, in that nearly one in four African Americans, or 37% of those surveyed stated they had been stopped unfairly by police because of race. What is surprising, however, is that 25% of African American women also reported being stopped by local or state authorities. Luckily, efforts are being made to combat this social issue on a national level.
The End Racial Profiling Act of 2001 (House of Representatives 2074 and Senate 989) was introduced to Congress on June 6, 2001. Receiving wide bipartisan support, this legislation seeks, first, to create federal prohibition against racial profiling; second, to provide funding for the retraining of law enforcement officers on how to combat such practices; and third, to hold law enforcement agencies accountable for its continued use of racial profiling. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and countless other organizations fully support this bipartisan legislation.
On the state scene, the Shoals Diversity Council in Florence, Alabama, hosted a town hall meeting on Critical Issues on Racial Profiling earlier this year. Sixty-seven law enforcement officers, district attorneys, community lay leaders and students from the International Bible College attended the meeting. According to the meeting evaluation, many of the officers found the seminar helpful and reported that no formal complaints had been filed against their department in regard to racial profiling. However, police administrators expressed an interest to conduct similar programs in their units, particularly, for those officers who were not able to attend the town meeting.
Unfortunately, racial practices based on prejudice or discrimination are deeply woven into our society like threads in fine tapestry. To treat one group of people less favorably than another because of color, religious belief or ethnic origin is racism. It can be experienced personally, through jokes, graffiti, violence and abuse, or institutionally, by denying individuals access to education, jobs, housing, services, etc. The effects of racism, on the other hand, are far reaching and serve no purpose other than to further erode our country economically, socially, politically, psychologically, or even ecologically through the physical breakdown of neighborhood communities.
Many of us would like to think that we rise above such practices, but the probabilities are greater that each and every one of us has been the victim of, or partook in some form of racial or discriminatory behavior whether in thought or deed. Recently, such incidences have reared their ugly heads as citizens are physically abused, verbally abused, or even killed as a result of the atrocities that occurred on September 11. Why? Because of their religious beliefs or simply because they looked to be of the same ethnic origin as the alleged terrorists.