Racism is not an uncommon problem for the United States. Due to the history of the country, and the fact that it was built, partially, by the slave labor, it’s hard to escape from the past. Even though nowadays minorities have it better and there is no more slavery nor segregation, a heavy prejudice against them is still here. Apart from blunt, straightforward racism, it also can take more subtle forms. Those forms in question are racial profiling and affirmative action. Though many people are proponents of one and opponents of second (or vice versa), they’re not that different. Support of either is a support of perpetuating cycle of racism.
Now, what are those two? The racial profiling is when a person becomes a suspect in a crime, only due to the color of his skin. In other words, it’s stereotyping taken to an extreme. For many people, when they see a Mexican on the street, they believe he’s probably illegal or cheap immigrant worker. When they walk down the street in the night and they see a black man on the other side of the street, they’re afraid that he’s going to mug them. The racial profiling is the same principle but which is executed by police officers. A black person who’s driving down the street is more likely to be stopped by the police, to check his car. He’s also more prone to frisking on streets. The racial profiling surely didn’t appear out of thin air, and justifications for its existence aren’t grounded in racism entirely. Statistically, blacks are more likely to commit crimes, because of how many of them live in the poverty and in bad communities. However, it’s abused too much and while it can have a positive effect on crime rate, it’s still wrong to judge a person solely on their skin color.
Affirmative action is similar to racial profiling but sits on the other end of the specter. It is when minorities are given a preferential treatment only because they’re minorities. That is when looking at the application for the university, if two students have similar grades, a student from a minority will have more chances to get picked. Similarly, many employers hire minorities only to get a quota on the diverse office. Though it might seem that there’s nothing wrong with that, as no one gets really hurt in that process, it still puts minorities on a lower level. It’s basically saying that they’re not capable of achieving things without an outsider’s help.
Michael Brus, an author of the article “Proxy War” argues that the racial profiling and the affirmative action aren’t that really different, and if a person supports one and denounces the latter, he’s a hypocrite. Two main camps that are guilty of that are liberals and conservatives. Liberals think that the racial profiling should go. Conservatives think that the affirmative action should. Both groups reject views of each other. However, if either of groups stand behind their arguments in the name of racial equality and not to push their own agenda, they have to realize that those two issues have to go simultaneously.
Both the racial profiling and the affirmative action stand in the path to the racial equality. Where the skin color influences only an appearance of a person - nothing more, nothing less. They do have some minor positives. The racial profiling is somewhat effective, especially in bad areas of the city, where blacks are more prone to commit crimes. The affirmative action can help a kid from a bad community might have only a one shot at getting a higher education, so it might be okay, in someone’s eyes, to give him a preference. But to have major improvements in our society, for us to have a truly equal country, they have to go.
Works Cited
Brus, Michael. "Proxy War". Slate Magazine. N.p., 1999. Web. 13 June 2016.
