To those here, what is your defintion of "racial profiling?" [View All]

[HardWorkingDem]

It seems to me, that like the word racism and accusations of racism, the words "racial profiling" are thrown around a bit too quickly. So, to those here, just what is "racial profiling".....

Is it racial profiling when:

A) A store has just been robbed by a person described as a white male, wearing a black t-shirt, shaved head, blue pants and a goatee. Police in the area begin looking for and stopping white males who resemble this description. Also, switch this to a black male.

Is this racial profiling when police start stopping people who fit this description?

B) A police officer is driving around a high drug traffic area and sees a vehicle being driven around like the person is lost. The officer parks in a dark parking lot and watches the vehicle and sees it keeps circling the area. The officer runs the license plate and learns the car is registered to a person from a small town twenty miles away. The officer then stops the vehicle after observing a traffic violation.

Is this racial profiling?


C) An armed robbery spree is going on in a town and the suspects are described as being a white and black male using an older model, dark brown box car with body damage on the driver side area of the vehicle, with a broken window. Police start stopping vehicles resembling this car with white and black male occupants.


D) A suspect has been mugging people late at night as they leave a busy neighborhood gas station/store. An undercover police officer is hiding across the street and sees a person hiding in the shadows near the rear of the store. He can't tell if the person is black or white and encounters the man. What if the man is black or white?

Is this racial profiling?


E) A person has been burglarizing vehicles in a huge used car lot late at night. A police officer is patrolling this car lot and sees a person walking through the car lot late at night and sees the person appear to hide when seeing the police officer. The officer stops the person and it is a black man.

Is this racial profiling?


F) The state police are running radar on an interstate. The radar running car is hidden on an overpass and radios to a catch car which car was just recorded as going over the speed limit and the second trooper stops the vehicle. Where the radar running trooper is at, he can't tell if the car is being driven by a man, woman, person of color or white person.

Is this racial profiling?



My point in all of these illustrations is the words "racial profiling" get thrown around too quickly. To me, racial profiling is when a person is stopped purely for their race or for racist beliefs about the person because of their race. For example, if a person would say to themselves, "Oh, there is a black man, he must be up to no good, I better see what he is doing." Or, simply stopping a person in a car because it is being driven or occupied by people of color.