racial profiling student essays

Racial Profiling Essay: Outline, Examples, & Writing Tips

Racial profiling is not uncommon. It’s incredibly offensive and unfair behavior that causes most of the protests in support of people of color. It occurs when people are suspected of committing a crime based on their skin color or ethnicity.

Unfortunately, most people are unaware that racial profiling is an everyday phenomenon that harms both the victims and society. Therefore, it’s crucial that we highlight this issue in as many ways as possible. One of the options is expressing your opinion through writing. A racial profiling essay can be inspiring and persuasive. All the power is in your hands, so let’s figure out how to use it! Keep reading this guide made by Custom-writing.org experts.

The article contains a writing guide, a collection of racial profiling essay topics, ideas, and examples, as well as the tips on making a racial profiling essay outline. We hope that it will inspire you to make an A+ argumentative racial profiling essay or even a persuasive speech on the topic!

🤔 What Is a Racial Profiling Essay about?

• 📑 Making an Outline
• 👌 Writing Tips

📝 Racial Profiling Essay Examples

🔗 references.

There is more than one objective for writing a racial profiling essay. First of all, it can be as simple as expressing your feelings about it. For example, you might consider pointing out how unfair and unjustified those actions are. Moreover, if you’re a law student, you should definitely back up those conclusions with the extractions from the Constitution.

You can then focus on describing the impact it has on society, which makes a fantastic cause and effect essay. There are so many more topic ideas, but if you’re feeling stuck, go ahead to the article’s next sections!

Argumentative Racial Profiling Essay

To write a successful argumentative racial profiling essay, you need to focus on investigating the topic to express your perspective later. Every statement you include in the main body of the writing should be supported by evidence. The essential part of such an essay is a clear thesis statement! And if you struggle to come up with a good one yourself, you can get help from a thesis statement generator online .

Persuasive Racial Profiling Essay

Unlike the type discussed above, a persuasive racial profiling essay should aim to convince your readers that your point of view is the only correct one. Instead of just presenting your point of view, you need to gather the most convincing facts that can influence your audience. It requires expertise in the topic of racial profiling.

Racial Profiling Essay Topics

Looking for a racial profiling essay topic ? Find a short and sweet topic collection below.

• The impact of racial profiling on the US society. For this essay, you would need to study how citizens react to racial profiling. You might also include some statistics from the previous years.
• Present your point of view on the issue of racial profiling. If you ever faced it yourself, your reflective essay would be even more powerful! Include as much evidence as you can.
• Racial profiling: are African Americans overreacting? Someone feels like people might be taking this issue too personally. Therefore, you should provide strong arguments to point out how discriminating those actions are.
• Accepting racial profiling as a common practice. Express your opinion on this topic. Do you think police should be legally allowed to practice racial profiling? Why would it be a violation of rights?
• Racial profiling from a psychological perspective. Try to analyze this occurrence as if you were a professional psychologist. What do you think makes law enforcement act this way?
• Does racism impact the US immigration?
• Discuss the definition and origins of racial profiling.
• Analyze the aim and values of the Black Life Matter movement.
• Racial stereotypes in Disney films.
• Examine the problem of workplace racism.
• How can racism in medicine be eliminated?
• What is the colorblind racism?
• Describe your personal experience of racism.  
• Compare the ways South Africa and the US are handling racism.
• The goals of the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Explain why racism is a persistent problem in modern society.
• Explore the concept of racial profiling in the “war on drugs.” 
• Childhood under the racist laws of apartheid in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime .
• Discuss the effect of racism on child development.  
• Is there a racial disparity gap in healthcare?
• Describe the problems racism causes in American schools.
• How does racism affect modern society?
• Racial stereotypes in music video.  
• The pros and cons of racial profiling in the airports.
• Describe the specifics of colorblind racism.  
• Discuss the possible solutions of racial profiling problem.
• Terrorist attacs in 9/11, hate crimes, and racial profiling.
• Is institutionalized racism a real problem or a myth?
• Racial and ethnical prejudices in breast cancer treatment.
• Examine the cases of racism against healthcare workers and their consequences.
• Analyze the impact of racism on globalization .
• Describe and characterize the main types of modern racism.  
• Racial profiling of minority groups in the US.
• Is racial discrimination issue completely eliminated from American society?
• Evaluate the racial inequalities in the US judicial system.
• Describe how race relations are represented in Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward.
• Analyze the difference between individual and institutional racism.
• Investigation of the history of racism in The Case for Reparations by Coates.
• Is racial profiling a discrimination or a necessary evil?
• Ways of dealing with racism in American education. 
• Examine the history of racial stereotypes in the US.
• Explain why racial profiling is a violation of human rights.
• Catastrophic consequences of discrimination and racial prejudice in the film A Soldier’s Story . 
• Racism as a global issue.
• Discuss the causes and effects of racism in America.
• What can be done to resolve the problem of racism at interactional level?  
• Analyze the issue of racial profiling of drivers.
• Describe the problem of racism and discrimination from the perspective of social psychology.
• Discuss the methods of solving the problem of policing racism.  
• Examine the cases of racism in social work environment.

📑 Racial Profiling Essay Outline

Whichever type of racial profiling essay you choose to work on, the basic writing strategy remains the same. After you pick up the suitable title and finish your research, it’s time to reorganize the main ideas. The best way to do it is to create a racial profiling essay outline that serves as a foundation for your future essay.

There are three elements that any essay must have:

• Introduction

The main body should have at least three paragraphs in which you present your arguments supported by evidence.

Racial Profiling Essay Introduction

It is a good idea to start your essay with a hook – a statement that aims to grab your reader’s attention. In your racial profiling essay introduction, you could use some impressive statistics that illustrate the problem of racial discrimination or describe a real-life situation.

At this stage, it’s also essential that you think about composing a racial profiling thesis statement . It goes as the last sentence of the introduction and becomes the focal point of your whole writing. The thesis statement includes your opinion and a short description of your arguments.

Racial Profiling Essay Conclusion

In conclusion, you should summarize your arguments and paraphrase your racial profiling thesis statement. It is also a good idea to add some information about the most important findings. This way, your essay would be both informative and persuasive.

👌 Racial Profiling Essay: Writing Tips

Let us remind you of some basic rules you should stick to while writing:

• Introduce your position on the problem and, at least, three major points in the thesis statement of your racial profiling essay.
• Gather enough facts and pieces of evidence to support your points.
• Do not forget to study the arguments of the opposing side.

Before you get down to writing your essay on racial profiling, try to answer the following questions:

• When did racial profiling start?
• Why does it happen?
• What consequences does it lead to?

Try to find some statistical data to include in your essay on racial profiling. Be careful with sources and information. The point is that racial profiling is unconstitutional, which is why you will not find official data, something like police reports, etc. Thus, use only credible online and printed sources when writing your papers on racial profiling.

There is also a way to show your creativity in the essay on racial profiling. You may play the devil advocate’s role and support it in the paper on racial profiling. We are sure this unusual approach will impress your teacher!

Below you’ll find links to 3 racial profiling essay examples. We hope that they will inspire you to write an A+ paper on racism and discrimination.

The modern globalized society provides numerous opportunities for improved communication and increased mutual understanding. However, there are still such problems as discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, mentality, sex, or gender, biased attitudes to some minorities, and widespread stereotypical thinking.

Read the full text

The system of racism entails degrading and harmful actions and beliefs that are implemented and expressed by both groups of people. Racism over the years has been one of the reasons behind poverty and lack of access to social mobility in the United States.

Racial identity and racial socialization are proposed to promote the improvement of African American adolescents in the aspect of race-related difficulties. Current studies pointed out that discrimination is a condition that has harmful effects on the mental health of African Americans.

So, good luck with your papers on racial profiling! Do not hesitate to visit our blog if you have trouble with terrorism essays or any other written assignment.

• Racial Profiling: Definition | American Civil Liberties Union
• This is why everyday racial profiling is so dangerous – CNN
• Racial profiling – AP News
• Racial profiling: Germany debating police methods – DW
• Psychology responds to racial profiling
• Racial Profiling – Equal Justice Initiative
• Racial Profiling: Past, Present, and Future?
• Racial profiling | Independent
• Racial Profiling – University of Michigan Law School
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What Causes Racial Profiling?

By Sarah Galbenski

Published: July 31, 2018

Rufus Scales, 26 and black, was driving his younger brother Devin to his hair-cutting class in this genteel, leafy city when they heard the siren's whoop and saw the blue light in the rearview mirror of their black pickup. Two police officers pulled them over for minor infractions that included expired plates and failing to hang a flag from a load of scrap metal in the pickup's bed. But what happened next was nothing like a routine traffic stop. Uncertain whether to get out of the car, Rufus Scales said, he reached to restrain his brother from opening the door. A black officer stunned him with a Taser, he said, and a white officer yanked him from the driver's seat. Temporarily paralyzed by the shock, he said, he fell face down, and the officer dragged him across the asphalt. (LaFraniere and Lehren)

In America today, this is a narrative that we have to come to know all too well. A young black man, either guilty of simply "driving while black" or a minor infraction, is pulled over by the police, usually in an affluent, predominately white neighborhood. Upon being pulled over, the driver is treated by the officers in a cruel manner that is not commensurate with his crime. This prevalent narrative is an example of racial profiling, which is "a form of differential treatment based on an individual's racial or ethnic social identity" (Williams 401). Although racial profiling affects many sectors of American society, particularly education and employment, for the purposes of this paper, I will be focusing on racial profiling as it pertains to law enforcement proceedings. According to Brian N. Williams, associate professor of Public Administration and Policy at The University of Georgia, "Biased policing exists when an individual's race is used as an illegitimate factor for initiating police actions against the individual" (401). So, if police officers understand that it is biased and unlawful to initiate police action against an individual because of his or her race, what causes them to continue to racially profile individuals? I contend that while racial profiling can be caused by officers feeling pressured to produce crime-reducing statistics and by those in power valuing efficacy over constitutionality, it is primarily caused by officers' implicit biases. Furthermore, it is not simply caused in reaction to an "abundance" of black crime.

Williams reports that there are "a growing number of research studies that highlight the disproportionate number of traffic and pedestrian stops and searches of minorities" (402). A likely contributing factor to this racial inequity is the fact that high crime "impact zones" tend to be comprised of mostly minority residents, and, based on interviews with the New York Police Department, Andres Garcia reported that, "Trained as they are in high crime areas, and taught that they are there to bring down crime, officers feel pressured to produce numbers and statistics, and therefore engage in stop-and-frisk practices at a disproportionate rate in these impact zones," zones which are overwhelmingly inhabited by minorities. The pressure to produce is even higher for recent recruits, fresh out of the Police Academy, who are aiming to prove themselves as bona fide members of the force. Unfortunately for the minority residents of impact zones, these eager new recruits tend to have first assignments in their neighborhoods. Since officers, especially new ones, are expected to produce crime-reducing statistics in minority populated impact zones, they often resort to racial profiling as an effective means to achieve their quota.

Although racial profiling may be considered an "effective" means to identify stop-and-frisk targets and fight crime, it is in no way constitutional. In fact, "In August 2013, Federal District Court Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled that the New York Police Department practice of stop-and-frisk, in which individuals are stopped for questioning and frisked for weapons, is unconstitutional because it violates the civil rights of the blacks and Latinos who are disproportionately targets of the program" (Garcia 37). Despite the unconstitutionality of the practice of stop-and-frisk due to its promotion of racial profiling, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg argued for the efficacy of stop-and-frisk and said that its practice would continue until the end of his term because he "wouldn't want to be responsible for a lot of people dying" (Garcia 38). When people in positions of power, such as Mayor Bloomberg, value efficacy over constitutionality when it comes to practices like stop-and-frisk, more occurrences of racial profiling are caused and perpetuated.

While pressure to produce crime-reducing statistics and more value placed on the efficacy than on the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk practices certainly cause racial profiling to occur, I argue that implicit biases encourage racial profiling to run rampant. Implicit biases are defined as "the stereotypes and prejudices that reside and operate in our mind outside of our conscious awareness" ("Suspect Race"). Although we may not possess awareness nor approval of our possession of these stereotypes, they are nonetheless present in our unconscious mind. As Malcolm Gladwell states in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , "We don't deliberately choose our unconscious attitudes…The giant computer that is our unconscious silently crunches all the data it can from experiences we've had, the people we've met, the lessons we've learned, the books we've read, the movies we've seen, and so on, and it forms an opinion" (39). In order to help us gain an understanding of our unconscious's opinions, social psychologists Anthony G. Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek created a series of Implicit Association Tests (IATs) designed to prove that "we make connections much more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds than we do between pairs of words that are unfamiliar to us" (Gladwell 37). The most famous of the IATs, the Race IAT, asks participants to sort both positive and negative words, such as "fabulous" and "evil" and images of white faces and black faces into their respective categories. After the participants sort words and faces separately, they are asked to associate positive words with white faces and sort them into the same category. Conversely, negative words and black faces are related during this first part of the test. For the second part of the test, the categories switch; white is now associated with negative words, and black is now associated with positive words. The results of this test state that "more than 80 percent of all those who have taken the test end up having pro-white associations, meaning that it takes them measurably longer to complete answers when they are required to put good words into the "black" category than when they are required to link bad things with black people" (Gladwell 39).

In order to scientifically explain this difference in response time, scholars have found that "there's some evidence that the amygdala, a center in the brain for emotions, flashes a threat warning when it perceives people who look 'different'" (Kristof). However, despite this biological explanation, it is more likely that our biases are derived culturally. This is hypothesized because in actuality, "many African-Americans themselves have an unconscious pro-white bias" (Kristof). White people look "different" from black people, yet many black people do not experience these threat warnings when encountering an image of a white face, as evidenced by their quicker response time when associating white faces with positive words. Even though many people, including undoubtedly many African-Americans, explicitly repudiate the stereotype that associates minorities (particularly blacks) with crime, according to Jack Glaser, Berkeley social psychologist and author of Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling, this stereotype is still pervasive in our culture and media, and therefore still influences all of our unconscious biases, African-Americans' included. Applying this concept of implicit biases to policing, Glaser asserts, "When we're making decisions under uncertainty, we tend to use cognitive shortcuts. What might feel like a legitimate hunch to a police officer could actually be the influence of a racial stereotype." Furthermore, these stereotypes evoke a sense of fear in police officers, and when they are put into perceived life-threatening situations, they resort to simplistic, overzealous responses.

Yet another view that has prevailed in American society for decades is that an "abundance" of black crime justly causes racial profiling, reactionary policing, and sometimes even "necessary" forms of police brutality. However, "far from being a novel bit of truth-telling, the argument that black crime is the cause of reactionary policing is among the aged and easily refuted clichés of American racial history" (Cobb). Jelani Cobb, the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, finds it ironic that this view is mostly held by American conservatives because "the idea that the treatment of an individual hinges upon his or her demographic category flies in the face of the doctrine of individual rights central to modern conservatism." Yet this revered doctrine of individual rights still pertains to the white population of our country, for although "the white-on-white mayhem is profound" as white people are six times more likely to be murdered by a white person than a black person, "no one speaks of it in racial terms" (Dyson 149). In our country, white is the default race. And, as the Race IAT demonstrates, it is far easier for the majority of our population to implicitly (and racially) associate whites with good terms and blacks with evil ones. When a black person commits a crime against their brethren, it is immediately racially labeled. Conversely, when a white person commits the same crime against one of their own, they are not lumped in with the rest of their race but are instead treated as singular beings:

That's because the phrase white-on-white crime doesn't serve a larger ideological purpose. White-on-white crime does not jibe with the exclusive focus on a black-on-black narrative that conservatives and liberals too, have bought into. The success of that narrative depends on a few things. You had to construct the ghetto as a space of savagery that was unique to black folk…Then you had to say that any right-thinking folk wouldn't kill each other. (Dyson 149)

The cultural narrative strikes again, construing blacks as savages, portraying whites as upright citizens, and unconsciously influencing us all. Furthermore, do blacks really commit more crimes or are they simply arrested for them at higher rates? In the case of drug crimes, "blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested for drug possession. This is despite the evidence that whites and blacks use drugs at roughly the same rate" In fact, "from 1995 to 2005, African Americans comprised approximately 13% of drug users but 36% of drug arrests and 46% of those convicted for drug offenses" (Nellis). The absurdity of the excuse that "horrific black crime" triggers racial profiling is quite evident. Whites use drugs at the same rate. And, "white folk consistently lead all other groups in assault, larceny, illegal weapons possession, arson, and vandalism" (Dyson 149). Once again, it has been proven that indoctrinated cultural biases influence the police's perceptions on black crime. They are not solely combatting a "radical disproportion" of black crime.

In the case of Rufus Scales, it is highly probable that before the police officers even identified his minor infractions, they unconsciously associated his blackness with crime. It is important to note that they possessed this implicit bias through no fault of their own. Since this stereotype is perpetuated by our culture, both black and white officers have no choice but to be inundated with examples of this black crime association in the media and society at large. However, their hamartia, their fatal flaw, occurred when they failed to recognize that they were under the influence of a racial stereotype and proceeded to abuse Scales out of fear. Although it is important to admit that we all fall prey to implicit biases, it is absolutely paramount to recognize when our biases cloud our vision and proactively choose to act out of rationality and respect, not out of fear. Whether or not Scales was in an impact zone or under the jurisdiction of a mayor who believed in efficacy over constitutionality, he will always be subject to officers operating by implicit biases. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance that officers are trained to understand implicit biases in hopes of reducing the number of occurrences of racial profiling. And, on a larger scale, it is crucial that we understand our own implicit biases so that we can be able to recognize the singularity of every human being instead of associating them with a stereotype.

Works Cited

Cobb, Jelani. "No Such Thing as Racial Profiling." The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/eric-garner-racial-profiling . Accessed 21 November 2017.

Dyson, Michael Eric. "Our Own Worst Enemy?" Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, St. Martin's Press, 2017, 143-169.

Garcia, Andres. "Stop-and-frisk: the policing of Latinos in New York." NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 46, no. 4, 2013, pp. 37+. Global Issues in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A355468776/GIC?u=nd_ref&xid=87fec209 . Accessed 6 November 2017.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2005.

Glaser, Jack. "Suspect Race: Causes and Consequences of Racial Profiling." News Center: Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California Berkeley , 24 Nov. 2014, https://gspp.berkeley.edu/news/news-center/suspect-race-causes-and-consequences-of- %09racial-profiling . Accessed 6 November 2017.

Kristof, Nicholas D. "What? Me Biased?" The New York Times, 30 Oct. 2008, p. A39(L). Global Issues in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A188025544/GIC?u=nd_ref&xid=5294534d . Accessed 6 November 2017.

LaFraniere, Sharon, and Andrew W. Lehren. "The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black." The New York Times , 24 Oct. 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html . Accessed 6 November 2017.

Norris, Ashley. "The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prison." The Sentencing Project, 14 June 2016, http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color- of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/ . Accessed 21 November 2017.

Williams, Brian N. "Racial Profiling and Biased Policing." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by Patrick L. Mason, 2 nd ed., vol. 3, Macmillan Reference USA, 2013, pp. 401- 406. Global Issues in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX4190600368/GIC?u=nd_ref&xid=f71f76de . Accessed 6 November 2017.

• To what extent does Galbenski demonstrate fairness/evenhandedness in her argument regarding the causes of racial profiling? Are you convinced by her argument, or do you see it as a function of her own implicit bias? Point to specific evidence from the essay to support your claims.
• How does Galbenski work to establish her credibility with her reader? To what extent is she successful in doing so?
• Comment on the effectiveness of Galbenski's use of the Rufus Scales story as a framing device. What kind of response did that story invite from you as a reader?

Sarah Galbenski

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54 Racial Profiling Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on racial profiling, 🎓 most interesting racial profiling research titles, 💡 simple racial profiling essay ideas.

• The Danger of Racial Profiling
• The Racial Profiling Issue in the United States
• Racism, Racial Profiling and Bias in the War on Drugs
• Racial Profiling: Issues Connected to Discrimination
• Racial Profiling in the Airports
• Racial Profiling: Necessary Evil or Discrimination?
• African Americans and Racial Profiling in the USA
• Racial Profiling of African American Drivers
• Racial Profiling: Trust, Ethics, Police Legitimacy
• Racial Profiling Against African-American Males
• Racial Profiling and Violation of Civil Rights
• Discussing the Intersection of Racial Profiling Research and the Law
• On the Observational Implications of Taste-Based Discrimination in Racial Profiling
• Treating People as Equals: Ethical Objections to Racial Profiling
• Examining the Environmental Context of Racial Profiling
• Racial Profiling as a Form of Surveillance and Securitizing Practice
• Authoritarian Criminology and Racist Statecraft: Rationalization for Racial Profiling
• Abolishing Racial Profiling With the Thirteenth Amendment
• The Experience of Ethno-Cultural Members With Racial Profiling
• Racial Profiling as Dressage: A Social Control Regime
• Exploring the Perceived Extent of and Citizens’ Support for Consumer Racial Profiling
• Black Supporters of Racial Profiling: A Demographic Profile
• Racial Profiling and Discriminatory Police Practices in Canada vs. United States
• Attitudes of Religious Individuals Toward Racial Profiling
• Intersectionality of Racial Profiling: A Call for a Broader Understanding
• Reference Populations for Examining Possible Racial Profiling
• Wa Baile v. Switzerland: An Implicit Acknowledgment of Racial Profiling as Structural Discrimination
• Disparity and Racial Profiling in Traffic Enforcement
• Effects of Racial Profiling: The Subjectivation of Discriminatory Police Practices
• Supervisory Challenges Arising From Racial Profiling Legislation
• Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Racial Profiling Research
• Racial Profiling Litigation: Current Status and Emerging Controversies
• Commonly Used Benchmarks in Racial Profiling: A Comparative Analysis
• Examining the Generality of Citizens’ Views on Racial Profiling in Diverse Situational Contexts
• Exploring Black Criminal Stereotypes in Racial Profiling
• A Doctrinal Comparison of Counter-Terrorism Racial Profiling in Europe and the United States
• Testing for Racial Profiling With the Veil-of-Darkness Method
• Legislative and Court Decisions That Promulgated Racial Profiling: A Sociohistorical Perspective
• The Utility of an Internal Benchmarking Strategy in Racial Profiling Surveillance
• Anti-Bias and Anti-Racial-Based Profiling Security Practices
• Racial Profiling by Store Clerks and Security Personnel in Retail Establishments
• Racial Profiling as a Preemptive Security Measure After 9/11
• Proposing a Policy on Eliminating Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement
• A Critique of the “Outcome Test” in Racial Profiling Research
• Tackling Racial Profiling: Reflections on Recent Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights
• Racial Profiling as a Public Health and Health Disparities Issue
• Shades of Justice: Racial Profiling Then and Now
• Public Opinion on the Use of Consumer Racial Profiling to Identify Shoplifters
• Racial Profiling as a Violation of Human Rights
• Preventing and Countering Racial Profiling of People of African Descent
• Exploring Black and White Accounts of 21st-Century Racial Profiling
• Racial Profiling in Works of African-American Literature and Film
• The Risk of Racial Profiling in Article 5 of the EU Screening Regulation
• Analyzing Racial Profiling in Contemporary Australian Policing

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StudyCorgi . "54 Racial Profiling Essay Topics." September 1, 2024. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/racial-profiling-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Racial Profiling were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

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Racial Profiling: Discrimination the People of Color Exemplification Essay

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Racial profiling is a disproportionate law enforcement exercises targeting a given racial group for investigation (Parker par. 1). The entire process involves discriminating the people of color using private security practices in various sectors, such as government departments, police, and airline. Racial profiling occurs due to unconscious perceptions that the perpetrators hold towards the blacks.

An example of a racial profiling case in the US involves Kendrick Johnson’s family who lost their 17-year-old son through bizarre circumstances at the Lowndes High School gym. In this case, three stories came into fore.

The police, on their part, held that the junior fell unnoticed when he tried to take back a shoe out of a rolled-up mat (Crockett Jr. par. 2), and the body was found the following day. The second argument was of the first autopsy that believed that positional asphyxia had caused the death. When the authorities exhumed the body some months later, most organs were missing.

This revelation led to a second autopsy, which held that the junior suffered a fatal blow. Surprisingly, from photographic analysis, it that emerged the teenager’s face was swollen and seemed beaten, and left him barely recognizable. However, the parents believe that the death of their child was not an accident. This is the story lawyers, the media, investigators, and the nation gets from the parents. With different stories on the death of the black teenager, the parents find it difficult to accept and move on with their daily lives.

The manner in which the security system handled the demise of the African-American high school student indicates how the system devalues black lives. To the family, the loss of their child resulted in both psychological torture and sociological problems, as evident in this article. For example, a year after the death, the parents are yet to report to work, and this has negatively impacted on their earnings. Kendrick’s father, Kenneth, was a truck-driver, while the mother, Jacquelyn, was a school-van driver (Crockett Jr. par. 8).

Kendrick’s parents have been championing for the elusive truth on the death of their child and crusading for reminiscences. Clearly, the parents cannot consent into the police findings and the autopsies that key government agencies held. So rooted is racial profiling among the US citizens, as evident in the manner in which some bus drivers could shout at them to “Give it a rest” or “Go home” when they were camping out with cardboard signs next to county courthouse.

The way in which the justice system handled the circumstances behind the death of the black teenager represents a society that is less concerned with the plight of the black minority in the nation. Several instances of racial profiling dominate the American history; this has made the black community feel as second-class citizens in the country.

With numerous cases on racial profiling, many people in America believe that this act is a serious and continuous problem, even in the 21 st century with a black President, Barack Obama, in charge. Dating back to the times of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Incident, the justice system still works disproportionately on the people of color.

In another case, city prosecutors and the police railroaded one Hispanic and four black kids in 1989 in a rape case (Smith par. 5). Even after analyzing the DNA results, the prosecutor insisted that the accused were guilty. With the high-level skewness in the justice system, racial profiling remains a course for concern in the American society. Eradicating racial discrimination in this line requires overhaul of the country’s legislations, as well as inculcating the expected changes in the education system.

Works Cited

Crockett Jr., Stephen. Black Parents Forced to Fight for Justice For Their Sons. The Root . N.p., 11 Jan. 2014. Web.

Parker, Dennis. Racial Profiling. American Civil Liberties Union . American Civil Liberties Union, 21 Nov. 2013. Web.

Smith, Ann. But We Have a BLACK President!. BK Nation . N.p., 19 Jan. 2014. Web.

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Racial profiling is when law enforcement officials perform discriminatory actions toward people suspected of crimes based on their race, nationality, or ethnicity. Many people stick to stereotypes and divide people according to their skin color, religion, or national origin. Police officers often demonstrate their dominance over people of other races. Unfortunately, silent watching the violation of the civil rights of other individuals does not lead to anything good.

So, movements for equal rights for ‘black’ people in America are usual. Teachers of ten assign racial profiling essays to draw students’ attention to this problem. Students should consider many factors leading to racial segregation in their persuasive writing, like historical preconditions, governmental policy, mentality, and culture.

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First Do No Harm

Jamie Paris asks if international students are being racially profiled when it comes to AI-related academic misconduct.

By  Jamie Paris

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One of my favorite parts of teaching is welcoming students to the university in my introductory literature courses. As an educator, I think of myself as a host to the discipline, and I want to be an ethical and engaging host for new students who, I hope, will learn to love literature.

I started to think of myself as a host when I realized there is an unasked question that hangs in the room for students during these introductory lectures: Are you going to hurt me?

Students want to be inspired, they want to be exposed to new ideas and they want to make new connections. But they are also terrified that their professors may intentionally or unintentionally, directly or indirectly, do or say things that will hurt them.

This may be especially true for international students, who make up about 22 percent of the student body at my institution, the University of Manitoba. This past fall, as I joined other professors in welcoming new international students to the university, I wondered, what kind of learning community are we inviting them to join? Is it one where we can be sure that professors will not intentionally or unintentionally hurt them?

To welcome new international students at this moment is to bring them into a university system where we are undergoing a moral panic about the impacts of text-generating artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT. About 43 percent of college and university students admit to using ChatGPT or similar AI applications, and about 50 percent of those who admit to using the tools say that they have used them to complete schoolwork. While the idea that so many students are openly cheating is alarming, these are self-reported numbers, and the likelihood is that the percentage is much higher. If we cannot get AI-based cheating under control, it could call into question the legitimacy of our credits and, in turn, the value of students’ degrees.

Yet university instructors are not trained on how to police AI-based academic misconduct, we do not discuss the potential biases we might bring to this policing work and we do not have systems to review our policing work to make sure we are doing a fair and equitable job. I did not become an educator to police students. I do not enjoy catching students who cheat or recommending punishments for them. Policing feels at odds with a pedagogy of hospitality, and like the inverse of what bell hooks calls teaching to transgress .

One of the many problems with asking professors to police, rather than educate, is that the rules around AI-based plagiarism are relative, opening up ample space for misunderstandings. The rules around what counts as cheating are in flux and can be different at different schools, for different faculties or departments within the same school, and even in different classes within the same department. Imagine being an international student coming to a new country, and perhaps learning a new language, while taking three different writing-intensive classes with three different professors who work in three different departments. You could have one instructor who permits some or all generative AI tools in their class, another who only allows the use of generative AI tools in specific instances or under specific circumstances, and a third instructor who will not allow students to use any generative AI, even tools found in Microsoft Word or Grammarly. These more restrictive policies, born of a tough-on-academic-misconduct mindset, may have unintended, but very real, consequences for students with accessibility concerns.

In short, we have professors acting as untrained police officers, defending an abstract ideal of academic integrity, combined with inconsistent rules around the use of AI across the university, subject to change from one faculty member or classroom to the next. What could go wrong?

A lot, I fear, especially for international students. Researchers at Stanford University have shown that AI-detection programs are biased against nonnative English speakers . In an article published in the data science journal Patterns , they found that while commonly used AI detectors “accurately classified the U.S. student essays,” they incorrectly flagged more than half (61.3 percent) of essays written by non-native-speaking students as AI generated.

Part of the reason for this is that AI detectors look at the complexity of the language in scoring papers. According to Stanford’s James Zou , the senior author of the above study, if the writing is more grammatically complex, uses a larger vocabulary and has more varied sentence structure, a detector is more likely to determine it was composed by a human. But, if a paper does not have lexical richness and grammatical complexity, then the detector is far more likely to assume that the writer was not human.

As use of AI (and AI detectors) increases, are university professors, intentionally or unintentionally, profiling international students, or those learning English as an additional language (EAL), for academic misconduct? The racial dynamic of this profiling is not at first obvious. We work with EAL students from Germany, Italy and France all the time, but those students do not seem to be the ones who are being investigated for academic misconduct. Rather, it tends to be students who are brown and Black who are disproportionately investigated for potential academic misconduct.

I would like to give raw numbers here to back up my point, but universities are resistant to openly tracking, or reporting on, instances of academic misconduct investigations by race or nationality, so we have no way of knowing how academic misconduct investigations may vary depending on skin color or citizenship status. Indeed, there is a complicated intersectional matrix to consider here in respect to how various elements of identity—among them citizenship and visa status, race, English language learner status, and markers of gender and class—can make accessing supports during an academic misconduct investigation more or less complicated. This intersectional matrix, moreover, can make it significantly more difficult to identify the potential sources of conscious or unconscious bias that graders and/or professors may have toward a student essay.

To guard against the real threat of conscious or unconscious bias impacting our international students, individual instructors must become mindful of the role conscious or unconscious racism may play in what papers they identify as potentially using AI and which students they accuse of academic misconduct. We also need larger, structural solutions. Universities need to track data over the next few years and provide clear reports outlining the demographics of those students accused of, and sanctioned for, academic misconduct. While each case of academic dishonesty is individual, when we start tracking these data in ways that account for the race and ethnicity of students and professors, we are likely to find some disturbing patterns. It is time for us to become better hosts to our international students by facing this problem and imagining ways to solve it that do not involve asking professors to do more policing.

Jamie Paris is an instructor of English at the University of Manitoba.

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Free Racial Profiling Essay Example, with Outline

Published by gudwriter on May 25, 2018 May 25, 2018

A racial profiling essay may require a student, among other things, to discuss the origin, prevalence or effects of racial profiling in a given country. If you need help with history homework or need additional help, we have experienced and qualified history experts who specialize in subjects such as art history, European history and world history. Contact us today and get professional help.

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Here is a sample essay that discusses racial profiling in the United States.

Racial Profiling Essay Outline

Introduction.

Thesis: Racial profiling is not only morally and ethically wrong but also legally condemned in the American constitution.

Paragraph 1:

According to the United States Constitution, every American citizen regardless of their race have equal protection under the law and protected against any unreasonable searches and seizures.

• Racial profiling tends to create a form of alienation of specific groups from law enforcers, inhibits community policing efforts, and leads to a lack of trust of law enforcers among the general community who they are sworn to protect and serve.
• Racial profiling goes against the sworn duty of law enforcers of protect and serve all American citizens despite their religion, what they look like, or their religion.

Paragraph 2:

The issue of racial profiling affects different communities of color.

• One of the most affected group has been African-Americans who have had to endure more than two hundred years of slavery and more than ninety years of legalized racial segregation leading to systematic profiling of blacks.
• The most recent case was the one that involved George Floyd, an African-American who died in the hands of the police while being arrested.

Paragraph 3:

Noteworthy, the violent attacks often meted out on the blacks by the police cannot be related to any situation that the group faced in the past.

• Most of the time, blacks have protested by organizing peaceful demonstrations and attacking symbols of the state.
• The George Floyd’s case attracted mass protests and demonstrations across the entire United States.

Paragraph 4:

It is morally wrong to judge an individual based on their physical characteristics.

• According to experts, judging an individual based on their physical traits is a major factor of racial profiling.
• A group of Americans prescribe to the idea that racial profiling is an effective tool in safeguarding security and punishing illegality.
• Critics argue that racial profiling does more harm than good to the affected groups and cannot be a solution towards the problems facing the US.
• For instance, on the issue of illegal immigration, although racial profiling is considered a solution by many it cannot be a systematic solution to the crisis of porous borders.
• Racial profiling leads to production of a sense of exclusion, alienation and fear among the targeted groups.

Paragraph 5:

Racial profiling violates and ignores the foundation of the American spirit and rule of law.

• In a fundamental sense, racial profiling tends to consider a group of Americans as ’not fully Americans’ and puts them under a continuous trial.
• Racial profiling intensifies and despises people of color in many aspects of life where lawful American citizens who are legally Americans are considered as half Americans or aliens in their neighborhoods.

In summary, racial profiling is legally and ethically wrong. The American Constitution stipulates that every American citizen has equal rights regardless of their race, sex, gender, and nationality. Racial profiling goes against this stipulation by painting a specific group of people as potential enemies.

Free Racial Profiling Essay Example

In the 21st century, there is a common argument that the United States is going through a post-racial era. That is, the country is going through a period where it is free from racial segregation and all other ills that come with the vice. However, the issue of racial profiling has continued to be an enormous social stigma for a select few American nationals. Defined, racial profiling is a general phrase referring to the practice of suspecting or targeting people from a particular race on the basis of observed characteristics or behavior rather than on individual behavior. In spite of the claim that the U.S. is enjoying a post-racial era, racial profiling continues to occur. Racial profiling is not only morally and ethically wrong but also legally condemned by the American constitution.

According to the United States Constitution, every American citizen regardless of their race has equal protection under the law and is protected against any unreasonable searches and seizures. Inasmuch as racial profiling is largely ineffective, it tends to create some form of alienation of specific groups by law enforcers, inhibits community policing efforts, and leads to a lack of trust of law enforcers among the general society which they are sworn to protect and serve. It is without a doubt that a government through the police force has a general duty to protect citizens while promoting fairness and justice (Zack, 2015). However, practicing racial profiling goes against this sworn duty leading to fear among citizens who are condemned due to what they look like, their origins, or the religions they subscribe to among others.

The issue of racial profiling affects different communities of color. One of the most affected groups has been African-Americans who have had to endure more than two hundred years of slavery and more than ninety years of legalized racial segregation leading to their systematic profiling. As noted by Butler (2017), not for one minute in the history of America has there been peace between African-Americans and law enforcers. In the recent past, there have been cases where the police resort to violence when arresting blacks. The most recent case was the one that involved George Floyd , an African-American who died in the hands of the police while being arrested. From the video footage of the incidence, the suspect had already complied with the police but was still chocked to death by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer (Hill et al., 2020). Not even the “I can’t breathe” pleas from the poor man could save him from death in the hands of the four white police officers.

Noteworthy, the violent attacks often meted out on the blacks by the police cannot be related to any situation that the group faced in the past, not even the Jim Crow segregation , the lynching, the restrictive covenants in housing, or the New Deal programs (Butler, 2017). Most of the time, blacks have protested by organizing peaceful demonstrations and attacking symbols of the state. Another group that has been a significant target of racial profiling are the Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians. The group has been profiled by individuals working in airlines, Federal law enforcement officers, and local police. The George Floyd’s case, as already described, attracted mass protests and demonstrations across the entire United States. People, including African-Americans, Caucasians, and people of color organized demonstrations to protest the inhumane racially-instigated act by the police officers. Some of these demonstrations even turned violent and culminated in looting sprees by demonstrators. This single act of racial profiling bordered on racism and even parked protests across the world, led by the Black Lives Matter movement. The world stood together with Americans against what intentional disregard for African-American lives.

It is morally wrong to judge an individual based on their physical characteristics. According to experts, judging an individual based on their physical traits is a significant factor of racial profiling. Nonetheless, there exists a group of American citizens who consider racial profiling as a useful tool in ensuring security and punishing illegality. On the other hand, some critics posit that racial profiling does more harm than good to the affected groups and cannot be a solution towards the problems facing the U.S. On the issue of illegal or undocumented immigration, racial profiling is considered a solution by many, but it cannot be a systematic solution to the crisis of porous borders (Chacón & Coutin, 2018). In its entirety, the issue of racial profiling towards solving the problem of terrorism and illegality overlooks an acute moral issue. By marking specific groups as targets or a source of threats, racial profiling goes a long way in putting many innocent citizens under pervasive scrutiny. In the process, there is a production of a sense of exclusion, alienation, and fear among the targeted groups.

Racial profiling further violates and ignores the foundation of the American spirit and the rule of law. In a fundamental sense, the practice tends to consider a group of Americans as ‘not fully Americans’ and puts them under a continuous trial. It is a devastating force that tends to put the affected group into a devastating psychological and physical harm. Therefore, it is morally wrong and should be condemned and unequivocally rejected by all means possible. It is crucial to pinpoint that racial profiling is not only practiced by law enforcers but also the public. That is, the public tends to paint a particular group of individuals as potential enemies or criminals based on their race, way of dressing, and culture. The practice thus despises people of color in many aspects of life as lawful citizens who are legally American are considered as half Americans or aliens in their own country.

Racial profiling is legally and ethically wrong. The American Constitution stipulates that every American citizen has equal rights regardless of their race, sex, gender, and nationality. Racial profiling goes against this stipulation by painting a specific group of people as potential enemies. The practice is also ethically and morally wrong since it characterized by judging an individual based on their looks and generalizing that opinion on every member of the group or race. The American government should thus actively engage in strategies that are aimed at combating terrorism and illegality without resorting to racial discrimination and profiling.

Butler, P. (2017, August 11). “ US justice is built to humiliate and oppress black men. And it starts with the chokehold”. The Guardian. Retrieved June 30, 2020 from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/11/chokehold-police-black-men-paul-butler-race-america

Chacón, J. M., & Coutin, S. B. (2018). Racialization through enforcement.  Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control: Enforcing the Boundaries of Belonging , 159.

Hill, E., Tiefenthäler, A., Triebert, C., Jordan, D., Willis, H., & Stein, R. (2020). “How George Floyd was killed in police custody”. The New York Times . Retrieved June 30, 2020 from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd- i nvestigation.html

Zack, N. (2015).  White privilege and black rights: the injustice of US police racial profiling and homicide . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Racial Profiling — Racial Profiling Against African Americans in the US

Racial Profiling Against African Americans in The Us

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Published: Jan 28, 2021

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