Racism and racial profiling is finally warranting broad societal discussions about power and inequality in the contemporary United States, but that doesn’t mean we’re doing enough to remind everyone how dangerous these things are. Despite the fact that more attention is being paid to racial profiling today than ever before, countless Americans are still subjected to racial discrimination and endure embarrassing and downright dangerous ordeals at the whims of the police.
Here’s why that everyday sort of racial profiling is so fundamentally dangerous, and what American society needs to achieve if we want to put an end to this disgusting and frightening practice.
Racial profiling has its roots in U.S. history
Racial profiling is a hot-button issue in this day and age, but that by no means insinuates that this is a new phenomenon. As a matter of fact, you can find plenty of instances of racial profiling in virtually every chapter of American history, whether we’re looking at revolutionary times or the Jim Crow era. During the infamous Palmer raids, for instance, the Wilson Administration abused its authority to round up countless immigrants and minorities for harsh questioning and deportation under false pretenses of national security. A breakdown by the ACLU of the FBI’s history on civil liberties accurately notes that the Palmer raids were one of earliest examples of racial profiling carried out by American law enforcement agencies.
To put it simply, racial profiling is the gradual cementing of structural racism that enables institutions to solidify discriminatory practices in everyday life. The very fact that racial profiling happens so often that it’s almost nonchalant in this day and age is precisely one of the intended effects; the idea is to make racial profiling so legitimate, normalized and acceptable that nobody will question it when authorities take in a young person of color for “questioning.”
This is incredibly dangerous for people of color in this country, and it also threatens to erode the broader civil liberties that protect everyone from government tyranny. African Americans in particular are the largest victims of racial profiling, so much so that it’s no longer exclusive to police officers pulling them over for petty things like “driving while Black.” Even everyday businesses employ racial profiling with regularity; three Black teens who were shopping for prom recently had the cops called on them, for instance.
Profiling enables even worse racism
The most important reason that Americans of all stripes should be vehemently opposed to racial profiling, besides its fundamentally unjust nature, is that it enables even worse racism to survive and thrive in society. When we turn a blind eye to Black teenagers getting harassed by police officers, store owners and their fellow non-Black citizens, we directly enable those offending parties to latter inflict even greater harm on those victims. If nobody cares when we absurdly praise police officers for not shooting Black children on sight, then it will become the norm that police officers are expected to be championed and thanked for not murdering those they’re supposed to protect for no reason.
Racism is one of the most dangerous elements of American society, historically speaking and in today’s political environment. Racial profiling is still rampant, especially with the availability of free criminal records, and regularly paves the way for worse injustices to take shape. What’s worse, it’s fundamentally at odds with the founding principles of the nation that’s supposed to be the world’s greatest democracy and champion of individual rights. Everyday racial profiling must be fought tooth and nail if America is ever to realize its potential and truly become the land of the free for people of all skin colors.
