Why do people care about racial profiling??? If you don't do anything wrong or break the law then what are you worried about?
I heard this from a black man's mouth in this court ordered class I had to take when I was 16 when I got caught with some marijuana. Quite stupid on my part but I'm drug free for over 7 years now. (He was at least 40 at the time)
Black guy "I was a victim of racial profiling"
White lady "oh? How?"
Black man "I was sitting in my car in the driveway and the police pulled up because I was black"
White lady " well if you didn't have crack cocaine on you would you be in this drug class right now?"
Black man "....."
This seems to be the case all the time Racial profiling is the result of blacks continual disregard of the law.
I know y'all think I'm racist, but I'm not, I have an Asian girlfriend and a Hispanic ex. And I still have a huge crush on this beautiful black girl I went to school with, Jesus she was perfect lol. (I don't like white girls)
Sorry for my rambling. I just don't get the whole racial profiling hysteria in America now. If you don't break the law then what's to worry about?
?2015-03-11T16:56:36Z
There are really several different aspects to your question.
1. Regardless of race, most people will jump through extreme mental hoops to avoid any kind of personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This is a personal failing and has nothing to do with race. If you're stupid enough to recklessly use drugs in full view of the public, you shouldn't be surprised when you get noticed and you should really be publicly ridiculed for trying to use your race to get out of responsibility for acting so stupidly.
2. Then there's the notion that you have nothing to worry about if you're not doing anything wrong. Well... Why worry about the stuff in the Bill of Rights if you're not doing anything wrong? Why worry about getting a fair trial? I mean, if you didn't do SOMETHING to deserve it, you wouldn't be in trouble in the first place, right? This is absurd and given the extreme detail and complexity of the laws, are you certain you haven't done SOMETHING wrong? Many people commit felonies everyday without even being aware because they haven't read the many thousands of pages of county, city, state and federal statutes.
3. That being said... Profiling is a wonderful tool of law enforcement, but it's only acceptable in society when we profile serial killers. Law enforcement gathers a metric crap-load of statistics about criminals that could be used to reduce crime through profiling. It would save money and the time of the police by not wasting resources on individuals not likely to have committed a crime and focusing attention on those most likely to have done something wrong. If we ignore what we have learned by studying crime and criminals for over a century just due to racial sensitivity, then we might as well have never bothered studying criminals at all.
It's a delicate balancing act between individual freedom and law enforcement. Personally, I prefer the de-criminalization of every act that harms no one else, just as a start, but there's a lot more we'll need to do to focus the attention of police on genuine threats to our society.
I'll give you an example. This is just an example and I'm not saying all cops do this. There are good cops out there, but more attention is given to the bad ones in the media. Let's say you are a black man who drives a BMW. Lets say you happen to be driving in front of the one cop in your town who practices racial profiling. He accuses you of stealing the car you are driving. You say in a calm, polite, and respectful manner that you own the car. He yells at you to keep your hands on the wheel and keeps his hand on his gun. Instinctively your brain tells you to feel fear because it perceives the possibility of being shot. He then allows you to pull out your registration. You show him proof. He finally lets you go, but not before giving you a traffic violation ticket. You didn't do anything wrong, but you take the ticket to keep things from escalating because your brain is telling you to get out of that situation. It's the fight or flight response ingrained into all humans (but this is getting off course).
Maybe this one instance may not rattle you. Now let's say this happens often enough to you. Eventually you will be changing your tune. Instead of "if you don't do anything wrong or break the law then what are you worried about" you would be saying that you didn't do anything wrong or break the law so why do they keep treating you like you do. It's like if someone flicks you on the nose once it might not bother you, but if they keep doing it eventually you will tell them to stop.
It is the assumption of crime based on color of skin only without any probable cause. Being the wrong skin color becomes the probable cause.
However, I agree some cultures prefer different types of law. ie The law in Singapore for example is extremely harsh, such as 30 days public service for chewing gum in public and the death penalty for illegal drug dealers and importers. This is why multiculturalism doesn't work, different cultures want different things and some chaff under laws made by the majority. I think we would have far different drug laws in the US if African Americans were in the majority.
The problem is that innocent Black people (and other people of color) are constantly harassed by law enforcement and made to feel like criminals when they've done nothing wrong. They are also twice as likely to be arrested/jailed and receive an average of 20% harsher sentencing for the same transgressions as White people. So yeah, it is a problem.