Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming.

Before I begin, I would like you to

imagine driving to work, running late for an important meeting. You are driving the
posted speed limit, obeying all traffic laws, and your car is in perfect working order. All of
a sudden, flashing red and blue lights are behind you and youre being pulled over. The
officer treats you as a suspect, smother you with questions concerning what youre doing
and where youre going; yet he never really tells you why youve been pulled over. What
is more, without any warranted reason the officer wants to search your car! After much
hassle you are finally free to go, yet without explanation why you were pulled over in the
first place. Thats strange, right? Now imagine that you were black and the officer was
white. In this case, you would have probably experienced racial profiling, which I will
present to you today. So Ill start off by telling you what racial profiling is in general and
then Ill go on to discuss recent statistics and highlight the issues that arise because of
racial profiling. Ill finish with possible solutions to this problem and, of course, summary
and conclusion. The presentation should last about 8-10 minutes. If you have any
questions, Ill be happy to answer them at the end.
Racial profiling means to assume that a person would probably commit a crime due to his
relation to a particular race or society. In other words, it is judging people on the basis of
their race, society and religion rather than on their actual behavior. In addition to this,
racial profiling is often police-initiated action that relies on the race or national origin
rather than information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been
identified as being engaged in criminal activity. There are two types of racial profiling,
hard and soft. Hard profiling uses race as the only factor in assessing criminal
suspiciousness. A good example of hard profiling would be an officer seeing a black
person and, without hesitation, pulling him over for a search assuming he may be carrying
drugs or weapons. Soft profiling is using race as one of many factors that raise criminal
suspiciousness over someone. For instance, imagine police had information that a Latino
gang, which drives red Hondas, was selling drugs along the freeway. Therefore a police
officer who sees a Latino driving above the speed limit in a red Honda, pulls him over in
hopes, IN HOPES of finding drugs.
Now, lets take a look at statistics. As you can see on chart, white and black people report
using drugs at SIMILAR rates, according to the latest data from the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration. Of course, there's some variance from drug to
drug: White people report more often using cocaine, heroin, and hallucinogens, while
black people report more marijuana and crack cocaine use. These statistics underline why
critics condemn the war on drugs as racial profiling. Although black people are not more
likely to use drugs, but they are much more likely to be sent to jail for drug possession. A
2009 report from Human Rights Watch found black people are more frequently arrested
for drugs. And the chart on the screen shows that black people were 3 times more likely to
be arrested for drugs than white people.
Racial profiling affects law-abiding citizens as well as offenders. Innocent people of
minority ethnic backgrounds are stopped, questioned and searched for reasons that would
not lead to the interrogation of a white driver. If law enforcement only focuses on one
particular group, other groups will be more likely to get away with transgression.
Racial profiling not only violates the civil rights of entire communities in the name of
criminal justice, but it is an ineffective tool to stop criminal activities and it ultimately
prevents people of minorities from working with law enforcement. Minority communities
need effective policing because they are much more likely to be victims of violent crimes.
They need police protection, and police want to do their job well. Mistrust of the law
enforcement makes this goal all but impossible because it makes people less likely to

cooperate with the police by reporting crimes and helping police investigations. In a
personal interview Ben Jordan, an African-American, stated that I have experienced
unfair treatment by police, and I have learned to not trust them or cooperate with them.
Due to these kinds of circumstances, both the public and police gain nothing.
End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) was already introduced in the Senate by Senator Ben
Cardin in May 2013. ERPA prohibit the use of profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity
or national origin by any federal, state or local law enforcement agency, help individuals
who have been unfairly targeted by such practices AND institute programs to eliminate
racial profiling that would require training for law enforcement agents, data collection,
and procedures for responding to complaints
Another possible solution is the change of perception? While the government has the
responsibility to ensure that policies are in place to protect people from racial profiling,
policies alone cannot fix the problem. To move forward, all society needs to do the hard
work of self-reflection. It may help, first, to understand more about the origins of these
biased perceptions. The ones Im talking about are based on the insidious stereotypes of
black Americans that link blackness with crime. In Americas collective consciousness,
black masculinity and criminality are linked. In todays society perceptions like these are
rarely openly discussed. But they ought to be.
To sum up, I have defined the term of racial profiling, I have pointed out several reasons
which prove that racial profiling is wrong and ineffective, and finally, I have suggested a
few solutions that would help to reduce the occurrence of racial profiling.
This leads me to conclusion that racial profiling is an enormous nationwide problem. The
reasons behind the practice of racial profiling are unjust, impractical and based on
stereotypes and assumptions, instead of facts. Sure, we want to stop criminals, but
targeting them by race is not the answer. If you ever witness this type of injustice, speak
out against it or simply do not participate in it. Thank you for your attention. Do you have
any questions?