RACIAL PROFILING LIVES ON 😠

This is one of the things that angers me the most because it has been happening for so long and our ancestors have fought for it with their blood, sweat and tears and for it to continue to live on is just flat out sad and disappointing. When are people going to realize that we have more things in common than we have differences? Physical appearance means nothing! It's all about what's inside- our emotions and thoughts. These are the things that actually  matter in our lives because they bind us together as human beings. But instead,  people spend and waste WAY too much time on the external. 

     I grew up knowing a girl whom I thought was the most beautiful female EVER. Although I had never before had the priviledge of talking to her, I assumed she just HAD to be amazing. She was so pretty outside, how could she not be the same inside? Then one day, she was assigned a class with me. I thought this was my chance, so I spoke to her. And I was wrong! In reality she had a horrible personality and was too fed up with herself to care the least bit about anything or anyone else. I compared myself to her and thought, well I may not be the prettiest, but at least I have an outstanding personality and people actually want to be around me rather than to avoid me like they would do to her. This was my first realization that I was "judging" someone, and note that at first this encounter was a positive one, so could you imagine a negative assumption about someone and how far that could go? That was the day I truly understood what "do not judge a book by its cover," really meant. 

NOTES 

•stop-and-frisk practices of the New York Police Department violate the Constitution

•ruling by Judge Scheindlin, of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, does nothing to disrupt the authority the Supreme Court has given police officers to target African-Americans and Latinos with little or no basis

•Supreme Court’s interpretation of that provision gives the police frighteningly wide discretion to follow, stop, question, frisk and employ excessive force against African-Americans and Latinos who have shown virtually no indication of wrongdoing

•the Supreme Court has held that people do not have a right to know that they can say no to an officer’s request to conduct a search

•Officers could stop and frisk these individuals for weapons based on the officer’s “reasonable suspicion”

•Supreme Court has made clear that simply being in a “high crime” (which often means a predominantly black or Latino) area can be a factor in determining whether a person is armed and dangerous

•The officer would be free to chase someone even if he had no reason to believe that they had violated any law

• Officers could argue that a man “looked Mexican,” and therefore believed that he was undocumented and could stop him

•The victory leaves in place a higher body of law, Supreme Court doctrine, that continues to expose African-Americans and Latinos to surveillance, harassment, violence and death