Peer Responses

Atayde 1

Samantha Atayde

Professor Misaghi

ENGL 1 2022, 2036

21 March 2021

The world is filled with unjust problems that occur on a daily basis. It is honestly hard to

be able to determine which ones are more important, because it wouldn’t be right, all problems

are equally important. Some unjust acts are more common in certain areas than they are in

others. Although there are many problems in our world, the one problem that is imbedded within

our society that has always seemed the most unjust to me: racial profiling. For those who many

not know what racial profiling is, it’s honestly pretty simple, people (usually minorities) are

targets simply based on their race. Something as simple as one's race can be cause for suspicion

on a crime being committed. Racial profiling comes from any and everyone, but the problem

with this comes when people are being racially profiled by people with power, people who we

are expected to have our best interests, those who we believe with protect us. Throughout our

history racial profiling has always existed, there is honestly no shortage, however within the last

decade there has been a huge uproar whenever police officers commit unthinkable acts due to

racial profiling. This is a major problem that has occurred in our past, continues to occur in our

present, and if we do nothing, it will continue to occur in our future community. Many do not see

the problem with this because it is not their category of people being targeted. They do not know

the fear the minorities live with daily, or the many different precautions that minorities have to

take in which they don’t. Now is the time to band together and come up with a solution to this

problem.

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In my community, racial profiling occurs on a daily basis and comes mostly from people

who have some sort of power, like the Los Angeles police department officers. I also want to

mention that although this occurs in my community, my community and I are not the only ones

that are affected by racial profiling, as it has also occurred in other cities and other states

showing it is a countrywide, and perhaps even a worldwide problem. This is not something that

has no evidence to back it up, there has been proof along with statistics to prove that Los

Angeles police officers are targeting minorities like Hispanics and African-Americans. However

while there has been evidence to prove what is going on, the evidence is usually quickly

dismissed or not even acknowledged. Along with all of the overwhelming evidence, there have

also been several, well known and trusted news outlets have also spoken out on the injustice

from the racial profiling being an issue with the Los Angeles Police Department as well as within

our country. The major issues with racial profiling is that innocent / the wrong people for

actually being accused of being “gang-affiliated”, innocent people are being murdered, and

guily people are getting away with breaking the law.

Like I have previously stated, there are many different problems that result from racial

profiling done by those with power. One incident that occurs most often is that certain people are

being targeted and pulled over more often. There were a few different short stories that were in

the article, about real life instances when this happened. After much research it was easy to be

able find a few articles with proof on this, as well as statistics. The very first one that came up on

the results was an article written by The Los Angeles Times. In short the article mentions that

people of color are more likely to be stopped by Los Angeles Police Officers. The article to a

quote directly from a Los Angeles Police Advisor stating that “they do not pull over people

based race” (“The Los Angeles Times, Poston, Chang.”) As you continue reading the articles the

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third story that is introduced is one of “Bryant Mangum.” Like most of the other short stories, he

was an African American man driving when he was suddenly and unexpectedly being pulled

over at gunpoint. The officers never gave him a real answer as to why he was even pulled over,

however that is not the interesting part. What jumps out at you is the fact that the officers were

“While one officer searched the car, the other asked whether he had guns or drugs, whether he

was in a gang and how he could afford a BMW. The officers are pretty much insinuating that

since he is an African American he could not possibly be able to afford a car as expensive as a

BMW. This is a perfect example of how they were racially profiling him.

While the article has many real life testimonials along with the experiences, it also comes

along with statistics of research experiments that have been conducted to see how often people

are targeted. Embedded within the first article lies another, written by Ben Poston and Cindy

Chang posted by The Los Angeles Times. With the acts violence occurring more and more often

within the Los Angeles area police officers decided to change their methods, and the results were

shocking. This led to about a 14 time increase in the amount of traffic stops in 2018 since 2014.

“65%, roughly about 31% of people, that were stopped during these incidents were Black

drivers, it was not only them 51% of stopped committed by Los Angeles Metro officers were

Black drivers. The article also kept track of whether or not there was contraband found in the

occupants car after being searched. To go along with this we found that blacks were 17.2% likely

to have contraband with them after being searched. People who are Latino we stopped 16.4%

higher than normal rates coming in with a similar percentage at 16.2% of contraband that was

found on them or in their vehicle. (The Los Angeles Times, Ben Poston) Lastly, probably to no

one's surprise, white people were only stopped 5.1% higher than normal rates. If you take into

consideration that roughly 59,512 people were stopped only in the Los Angeles Police

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Department Metro Division, more than 50% of the people stopped we’re people of color. The

huge issue that stems from this is that police officers are so focused on certain groups of people

and expecting them to be the ones who will commit a crime that other groups, which are not

likely to actually be committing the crime get easily overlooked.

Works Cited:

Poston, Ben, and Cindy Chang. “LAPD Searches Blacks and Latinos More. But They're

Less Likely to Have Contraband than Whites.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 8

Oct. 2019, www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lapd-searches-20190605-story.html.

Poston, Ben, and Cindy Chang. “'Stop-and-Frisk in a Car:' Elite LAPD Unit

Disproportionately Stopped Black Drivers, Data Show.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles

Times, 24 Jan. 2019,

www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-lapd-traffic-stops-20190124-story.html.