Fahad Siddiqui
Mrs. Pinto
Web Design
7 December 2012
Be the Change: Racial Profiling
America is a nation where people of all ethnicities and religion come together as one and create the “United” States. However, one factor that has made our nation not- “united” is racism and racial profiling. Slavery first started in our nation in 1619 when we seemed to think that Africans were less than human. This absurd idea lasted until January 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. Although slavery did end, racial profiling did not. This is why racial profiling should be ended or atleast attempted to be ended in 2013.
Today, in 2012, many different kinds of people get racially and religiously profiled because of media and the single-mindedness of the actual racial profilers. Some kind of people that get racially profiled are: African Americans, Muslims, and Mexicans/Hispanics. According to NYCLU “an analysis revealed that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports.” Muslims, ever since 9/11, have been racially profiled as terrorists. This gets me really frustrated because a few people’s actions have affected so many people in many different ways. Muslims constantly get checked at airports and get “random-checked” which we all know is a lie. Hispanics and Mexicans are racially profiled as “dirty” and “thieves.” Why? No one knows. Thanks to the media people nowadays get brainwashed into thinking what the media wants them to think.
Lastly, I would like to say how we could better this racial profiling. Who knows whether we will actually be able to fully stop racial profiling. But I would like to start rallies on the streets showing people why innocent Muslims, African Americans, and Hispanics are being discriminated. Muslim women get scared to put on their burqas because they are afraid people will look at them in a nasty way. Muslim men shave their beards because they get scared people will discriminate them and view them as a terrorist. These are reasons why I would like to stop racial profiling in 2013.