Racial Profiling

Will Racism Ever End?

When people think of the Hispanic community many associate them with the following terms: undocumented or even wetbacks. We live in society where racism still exists but is not recognizing for the Hispanic community. Many people consider all Hispanics to be Mexican who eat tacos and are named Juan. The reasoning behind it is because we live in society where we are not educated enough about different cultures. As children many of us are brought up to view law enforcement, as warriors who protect us from the evil but many members of the Hispanic community can disagree. In Arizona it is very common for law enforcement to conduct racial profiling on Hispanics. Many of you might ask yourself what is racial profiling? It is when law enforcement use ethnicity or race as factor to decide whether to pull you over. So in Arizona Hispanics are targeted a lot and are look down upon. In Arizona there are frequent stops for Hispanic people and no real motivate behind the stop besides their skin color. When traffic police officer are targeting illegal immigrants on the roads they are more liked to pull over a legal Mexican rather then illegal white Canadian. There is no way to determine whether someone has documentation but just looking at them.

Another incident of racial profiling occur on March 4, 2015. There was article published by Mark Steil from MPRnews. The article was about woman named Jesus Manuela Mendoza who sued two towns in Minnesota for discrimination by arresting and searching her home without a search warrant. In “In a 2008 investigation, MPR News found that Gaylord police disproportionately issued tickets to Latino drivers.” Steil shows reader that Mendoza was just one of many victims of racial profiling in Minnesota. In the article it is stated that the police officers went to her house without a search warrant and also illegal arrested her. Steil also mentions in the article that a police officer compared Hispanic inmates to monkeys and how it was an entertainment to watch them. .” Many members of the Hispanic community fear the law enforcement because they are aware that they are seen as illegal aliens to many. To prevent what happened to Mendoza, many individuals will carry their green cards or other sorts of identification to show their proof of legal status. In the cartoon the police officer represents an officer who is guilty of racial profiling which lead to the mother and daughter feeling uncomfortable.

In the video released by Univision News, which is a well known network amongst the Hispanic community on November 14, 2012 they captured an event with a police officer pulling over Hispanic driver. The networks purpose was to capture a police committing racial profiling. They used a vehicle that typically Hispanic driver would drive, that consisted of loud Spanish music and some type of religious object in the car. The driver made sure to follow the rules of the road, which he made sure to complete a full stop and to assure there were no vehicles on the road before entering it. Within seconds on the road police officer pulled him over, the officer asked for his documentation and the gentleman responded in Spanish asking what was the motive behind the random stop. The police officer was very cold when telling the man that he did not speak Spanish. A reporter from the network approached the officer asking him why did he pull of the Hispanic man. The reported asked the officer if the reasoning behind it dealt with the man being Hispanic. The Overall question is, will racism ever end? It has been decades since Martin Luther King Jr’s death and America is still experiences racism everyday.