by Owen Hayburn

Created on: March 17, 2009

In opening i would like to bring into this debate a slightly unrelated but in my opinion needed bit of opinion.

The world as we know it is and will hopefully continue to be a place which has celebrated differences. This is a fact that even as small children we have been taught. We are told to respect the differences between men and women, handicapped people and people who aren't, elderly people and people younger than ourselves. In this world where differences should be respected there still exists the whole issue of "Race". To get to the point of this introductory opinion of mine, I wish to ask this: When would racial profiling not exist? Is it going to be when there are no longer differences between all of us? Mayhap it will be when a single soul no longer cares if we are different at all?

I can honestly say that yes, it does make sense in many ways as to why we would profile people based on their race, and or other specific circumstances, however the reasons we profile people at all if because of known differences between groups of people. Yes, it is most terribly unfair that skin color has been and continues to be one of the key differences we look for, rather than simply behavior or other more easily recognizable attribute, however we cannot simply rule out that in the said "White" Neighborhood that the African American driving the beat up car was not there in the first place to sell drugs or cause a disturbance of some other sort. After all in the eyes of law enforcement the person driving a beat up car in any residential area is supposed to be suspicious regardless of race.

People ask constantly "Why do racist people exist, Why do people have to be so judgemental?" And many other similar questions. I must say the answer has been staring people concerned with matters such as this in the face for so long its almost not funny. It is the behavior of people of any race that causes them to be profiled. Several ways to rid themselves of this would be one: Stop behaving like the stereotypes, simply put if you drive a beat up car and are in a place that it would be suspect for said car to be there (for anyone that looks slightly off you may be a robber regardless of color and the car screams "I need money, I'm a robber") and secondly if we were to stop teaching children with media and other sources about the differences between us that don't matter then this problem wouldn't exist. Shows like the Boondocks, and other shows that show the people that watch them that for instance all African Americans call themselves by slang terms, drive low-rider cars, wear gold chains, and so on. If we stopped allowing things like that to continue then the idea that all people of a given race were the same as one particular group would end as well.

In closing I would like to brush slightly on the September 11th issue. (very briefly) I think yet again it was the media that was the main cause of the problems. Yes, the terrorists that caused the event were to blame don't get me wrong, but if our own media coverage would have not made such a huge deal over it (to the point of still talking about it for years to come) then questions our childeren asked us about the "bad people" that did that would have never needed to be answered. People who are ignorant in general would not have been reminded about their unfounded anger at a whole group of people, when it was a specific small group. And so many other things could have been much better had all of us not been reminded everyday about those terrible horrible people who "terrorized" us.

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