Sociology

Racial profiling is the discriminatory acts by the security enforcement personnel of going after individuals after suspecting them on crime. This suspicion is however based on race, religion, ethnicity or national origin. This practice is common with the police who rely on a group of characteristics they think are associated with crime or terrorism. For instance, there has been a common practice by the police to stop drivers for minor traffic offenses by virtue of their race. This is commonly known as driving while black or brown. (Bryan, 2007, p.2284).  Another example is the use of race to determine which pedestrians to be screened for illegal contraband (Kops, 2006). But of course the major form of race profiling is that which has been ongoing after the September 11 attack where Muslims, Arabs and South Asians are put in detention for minor violations of the law on suspicion of being terrorists. The question here is, should the Arabs be treated with caution Examples of law enforcement personnel include any person in the capacity of policing for private or public purposes. This may include airport security guards, store guards, police officers, or airline pilots all of who have been accused of racial profiling in one way or the other. Racial profiling should not actually be confused with the act of law enforcement personnel pursing suspects whose description may involve ethnicity or race together with other identifying factors which are genuine (Kops, 2006).

Websters dictionary defines civil rights as the rights enjoyed by an inhabitant of a given country by law. In the United States, these are considered to be rights which are stipulated in the nations constitution.  The same dictionary defines humanitarianism to be the humane treatment between people. It is actually the belief that every person is a human being and deserves respect and dignity from the other. Even though the definitions of these two words are seen to be a little bit different, their meanings are actually related. It implies that all human beings are the same and should be treated equally despite their differences. According to Johnson (2004), there is no dispute that the current insecurity in the world calls for proper security screening and safety precautions especially in the entry points like the Airports. It is in the nature of man to fear the Middle East because of the terrorist attacks but this does not mean that everyone from there should be treated inhumanly. Americans should understand that these people have civil rights which should be respected (Johnson, 2004).

According to Bryan (2007), the occurrences of September 11th brought about racial profiling. A practice that everyone was speaking ill of a few months ago became an acceptable and common practice used by police agencies, airline officials, government and the whole of American public. Every part of the government had condemned racial profiling by the police. Everyone was for the idea that enforcement of the law on racial basis by the police not only in traffic but even other law enforcement activities was not good for the country. The whole public was of the consensus that racial profiling was to be eradicated in the fastest way possible because it was such an evil. For how long shall the law enforcement personnel use racial origin in targeting suspects for arrest or searches Many people have become concerned with this issue especially after the occurrences of September 11th 2001. The world has given so much attention to terrorism and it is assumed that all those who wish to harm America live in the Middle East (Bryan, 2007).

Three buildings which are all prestigious to the Americans were intentionally destroyed by crashing planes in them. The findings reveled that the three planes had been hijacked by eighteen men all of who originated from the Middle East. The country was forced to take drastic changes in providing security to protect the citizens from any further attacks and this has contributed to the increase in racial profiling. Before the attack racial profiling was totally eliminated. However there has been a whole new world after September 11 (Johnson, 2004).

The use of profiles that were based on race was previously condemned by everyone in the whole world because it was very unethical.. The security in every American Airport has increased drastically after the September terrorist attacks. Even though drastic safety measures have been put in place to counter any terrorist attacks, some security personnel are using unethical safety measures. Since the attackers of September 11 were believed to be descendants of the Middle East, every person who is seen to be from Middle East has been racially profiled in all the Airports in America. Hussein Abbas who is an Arab lawyer said he witnessed in humiliation two security personnel pull out clothes from his bag while every one at the airport was watching. He was even kept for 30 minutes at the gate despite showing them a business card with his identification as a National Bar Associations member. He added that he felt so threatened because if he continued to protest, then he was most likely going to eat the carpet floor.

Flying while Black and Brown is a common quote used when describing racial profiling. Passengers in airlines have complained of racial profiling ever since the occurrences of September 11(Bryan, 2007 2286). Black women have been major victims on the allegations that they were transporting drugs. Despite the supply of a memorandum to all airlines by the Transportation secretary as early as 21st September 2001, there have been more than 31 complaints of discrimination against people from the Middle East and Arabian countries (Bryan, 2007, p.2284).

The injustices committed against African Americans around the 1960s should actually be a good lesson for all Americans. It is ironical that racial profiling is now being considered a vital tool of preventing terrorist attack and yet sometimes back it was considered to have caused a lot of injuries to the citizens while doing very little to cat down on crime and drug abuse. The discussions by the public against racial profiling all changed from Latinos, African American, and other small groups who were considered drug traffickers and domestic criminals to Muslims, Arab Americans and other groups from the Middle East who resembled the September 11 suicidal hijackers. According to Moody (2008), people from the Middle East should not go through what we saw the African American go through before integration. It is encouraging that some Americans have realized this and have come up with organizations that are trying to stop racial profiling at the airports.

People should not be targeted because of their ethnicity or race especially at this point in time when there is so much terrorist attacks which do not care about the ethnic background or race of the people they harm. This should be the time when everyone is guaranteed of total security from the government (Heumann,  Cassak, 2003).

Private security has also been accused of targeting shoppers of color for suspicion of being shop lifters. This is commonly referred to as shopping while Black and Brown. It is the Prominent African American women and the working women who have been major victims of this. For instance the famous TV host Oprah Winfrey once said that she was refused entry into a shopping store even though she saw many white women doing some shopping in the same store. She even made a phone call and confirmed that the store was open but she could not be allowed in just yet. This is a clear indication that racial profiling is very high in the United States. If such prominent women like Oprah who is actually renown all over the world can be victims to racial profiling,(Moody, 2008).

There has also been too much worksite Racial profiling after the September 11 events unfolded. The department of Immigration and Neutralization has been the major victim.  This service has had a history of targeting people inappropriately on the basis of color and ethnicity for labour violations that are not documented. INS agents are supposed to be equipped with sufficient evidence for any mistakes made before they make an arrest just like any other law enforcement officers. They should never perform their duties in an ethnically or racial discriminatory manner (The peoples media company). It is quite understandable that racial and ethnicity matters are very important in immigration violations but there is no need for law enforcement actions when there is insufficient evidence for any law braking. There was a review of INS files by The New York Times which were selectively released by the law enforcement suit about the garment workers union. In this settlement was a summary that Latinos comprised of 96 of all the 2907 people who were in the raids on worksites by the INS. This was in fact greater than their legal or illegal population representation in the city. Even the INS had agreed that half of the workers were Asians but not Latinos but the report was still released either way (The peoples media company).

There is also the voting while black and Brown scenario with a good example being the 2000 presidential election in Florida which had rampant claims of racial profiling (Bryan, 2007, p. 2286). There was a presumption that African Americans voted Democratic and this provided the Republicans with apparatus to control the elections with a target that was easily identified. The outcome of the elections was changed by the state which targeted people of color in a manner suggestive of literacy requirements and racist poll taxes of the earlier Southern history. The Secretary of state in Florida compiled an ex-felon scrub list months before the election and these names were supposed to be removed from the voters list. It was later realized that the list contained names of people who were not even felonies (Dudziak, 2003).  There was another action o similar impact where residents of Florida who had felony convictions in other states were removed from the voting list despite the rule by the courts that people were eligible to vote in the states in which they had been convicted. The restrictions placed by the election official meant that the poll workers in color communities like the African Americans were supposed to ask for photo identification from these people and yet nothing like this happened in communities with white people.

There were reports of more serious harassment where policemen placed check points in voting stations and forced the voters to line up as they inspected vehicles and driving papers. The motive behind this was to delay the communities of color from going to vote. This is actually racial profiling of the highest order. Another controversy arose when only 11 of the eligible voters were African Americans and yet 54  of their votes were rejected. There is no chance that this could happen because they were fewer than the whites and therefore the probability of their votes being rejected was lesser (Dudziak, 2003).
The world today is faced with so much treat from terrorist attacks, which calls for proper security measures at all entry points to any the United States. This however does not mean that the charged worth the responsibility of providing security should use racial or ethnic basis to discriminate against human beings. We all have civil rights which should be obeyed and respected by all.