History of Racial Profiling

        So, here we are at the bottom of the 21st century, where racial profiling is amongst the top issues in society. Weather you are white, black, Mexican or Asian, everyone feels that they are being racially profiled, and they also believe that racial profiling is a concept that manifested recently in society, which is entirely untrue. Racial profiling dates back to the 1700s when slaves, and slave owners were in the height of their existence. Racial profiling has a long, brutal, history, specifically in the deep south. So, not only is it a grandiose problem in todays (2017) society, it has also been around longer than most people think.

        In the year of 1963, Philadelphia’s court officials deemed police legal authority to stop or arrest any African American he seen wandering about, however, this was just the beginning of racial profiling in the U.S. In 1704 South Carolina founded the first “Slave Patrol” in which white men patrolled, and performed checkups on plantations to be sure slaves we being lawful, many people argue that this wasn’t racial profiling because they were performing “checks” based on if you were a slave or not, however all slaves were essentially black, so this was a very early form of racial profiling.

        Jumping forward in time to the early 1950s all the way through the late 1960s, was the era known as the civil rights era. This was the era when racial profiling became politicized, during this time many African Americans were treated as though they were criminals simply because they were black. The phrase “Driving while black” was coined during this era and statistics show that while blacks only made up 42% of New Jersey’s driving population, they accounted for 72% of traffic stops made in the state throughout the mid 90s. Looking back, this did nothing but makes officers look foolish and out of line. Though there has been many cases of black racial profiling, there is also numerous others races that were frequently profiled in history. A very specific example was during the second world war, the united states banned people from japan from becoming U.S. citizens following the attacks on pearl harbor, as they thought they couldn’t be trusted. At the time, the majority of the people thought this to be 100% rational, however people in today’s society, looking back, people say that it was very controversial, and constituted a form of racial profiling.

        All in all, racial profiling has existed for as long as the United States has been a country, and is most likely going to be here for years to come. All we can do is keep moving forward and learn from the mistakes of ancestors, nothing good has or ever will come from racial profiling. It caused issues in policing 200 years ago and its still, potentially more than ever, causing issues today.