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Antony Parada Porron

Professor Batty
English 114A
15 October 2014
The Struggle of the Misunderstood
Racial profiling is a problem that has effected immigrants in the past but now it is
effecting Americans in our modern society. An issue that has been brought up many times but
nothing is being done about it. But there have been people spreading the awareness of the current
racial issue, whether it is political cartoon or part of a literature work. To be clear racial profiling
is when one uses someones ethnicity as grounds to accuse someone of committing an offence.
Thanks to people like Mike Keefe, Brent Staples, and myself we are bringing more awareness of
this issue either through the media or speaking on personal experience. Racial profiling is normal
for me unfortunately when I walk the streets back home I usually am followed by a patrol car
and when I go into a store a police officer would go in to talk to the owner, and when I leave he
leaves. And this not only happens to me but other people in my community. But Mike Keefe
made a bold move by illustrating racial profiling.
In his cartoon which was published on The Denver Post, Mike Keefe illustrates the racial
profiling that is currently happening in the state of Arizona. In the image we see two officers
stopping a Hispanic man that is driving, we also see one officer pointing a gun at him saying
Step out of the vehicle and place your hands on your head. While the other officer is
comparing the Hispanic man skin tone with a skin tone chart. Also on their uniforms and patrol
car we can see the abbreviation for Arizona AZ. This depicts the issue of racial profiling
clearly the reason why these two officers are stopping the man is because he is Hispanic. There

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Is an issue that Arizona is currently facing and that is illegal immigration. Now I can understand
that this is a serious issue, but what this image is telling is that the officers are stopping any
Hispanic person because they think they are illegal immigrants. And it ties back to racial
profiling why did they stop him we dont know if he is illegal and furthermore why point a gun
at him and tell him to step out of the car like he is a criminal. That what racial profiling means
using the ethnicity or racial background to accuse someone of an offence. That is what these men
are doing they stopping him because he is Hispanic therefore he is illegal. Which in my mind is
jut plain out offensive and racist. But also an author by the name of Brent Staples wrote an
article expressing his personal experiences with racial profiling.
In his article Black Men and Public Spaces, Brent Staples covers the experience he had
as being a black man in the late 1960s. He begins his article with an encounter with a white
women who was described to be middle class, he starts off with My first victim was a womenwhite (182). He made himself seem like he committed a crime against this women even though
he didnt do anything. But after reading his article I believe his reason for introducing himself as
a criminal was because he was being look at as a criminal. Staples later states the way he dressed,
walk, posture, and skin color made the women think he was a criminal. As a student of
University of Chicago he worked as a journalist for a local paper. When he came rushing into the
companys building staff members immediately thought he was a mugger. He had to run from
security to get to his editor in order to clear up the misunderstanding. They thought he was a
mugger because he is black what else can it be he didnt dress in any way to make himself look
like a mugger. But that was not the only experience he had that he was looked at as a criminal.
According to the text he was going to interview someone for the local paper he was working for,
but he was early so he decided to enter a jewelry store to kill some time. As he enter the store the

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owner of the store took one look at him and went to the other room, and she brought back a dog.
She had the dog on a leash and pointed it at Staples. He notice and took one last look around the
store and bid the lady a good day. The owner didnt even bother to welcome Staples, she rather
launch a dog at him because of the color of his skin. And his experiences have fully connected
with the issue of racial profiling. Yes he is black, yes the black community is currently having
problems, but that does not mean that all black people are criminals. I live in this so call hood
and my neighbors are black, but they are some of the nicest people I have ever met. After
thinking about it I believe I have found the source of the problem.
We as children look up to our parents, and whatever they do we believe it to be right. So
what happens when a child is raised in a racist home, well the child develops hatred towards
other ethnicity groups. Another issue would be what happens when a child is raised in a broken
home that child grows up not knowing what is right from wrong. You see the way parents are
raising their child that is the source of the problem. If we can actually teach our children that
being different is fine then we can make a huge change in our current society, but I believe that it
will be a while until the issue of not only racial profiling but racism in general can be fixed.
In conclusion, racial profiling is indeed a big issue in our time of age, we are supposed to
be knowable and cunning, but what we lack is heart. We are being told different stories being
shown different images of racism but we are afraid to do something about it. Everyday people
are being affected by stereotypes and the pain of being racially profiled he only way to change
this is by first changing the way we think and then passing that knowledge onto our children so
they can know that being different is ok. And if we can do that then I believe the world will be a
brighter place to live in.

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