Race Matters

Race Matters

Racism and racial profiling have always created a giant rift in American and even global society, and most likely always will. The way Americans view each other is based off of ignorant stereotypes that have slowly made it to where when we look at others of a different race we are immediately asking ourselves questions about them based on these stereotypes. Racism can only be stopped one way, by not doing it anymore. Even though this task may seem extremely difficult; because race has had such a big hand in shaping our country from things like slavery, the civil rights movement, to more recent occurrences like September 11th. Americans should one day be able to look at their fellow citizens and come to no sudden conclusions about them. One day we may all be much more closely related to those we dislike before we realize it.

American society has always had its issues with racism, generalizing, and profiling, but are these deeply rooted and sometimes uncontrollable notions actually given to us by the government to intentionally put us in separate categories? Amitai Etziono believes this is a very accurate statement and digs deeply into this question in "Leaving Race Behind". Etziono describes that on his United States Census form he realized this is exactly what they do. He notices that there are an almost overwhelming amount of options to choose from on the form for race but none of them fit what he felt was his racial category. He checked other only to find out later he was just put into a category by the government. He also raises the complex issue that racism is no longer black versus; white it has expanded to all spectrums and that even some groups of Americans are being profiled for the inaccurate ethnicity.

Etziono gives great examples as to why Americans need to drop race and just be what they are, American. People now come out with such harsh slurs and they may not even be accurate with what ethnicity they are harassing. The stereotypes we have embedded into our heads have been there for so long passed down by generations. We have begun to look at other people of a different race and automatically come to conclusions about them without even saying a word to them. America has become too much of a melting pot for people or even the government to categorize. Marrying outside of your own race has become so popular "that most of us will soon be tied to Americans of a large variety of backgrounds by the closest possible social tie, the familial one" (Etzino 487). Scenarios like this will make for even the largest of bigots to learn how to accept other cultures. At some point we will not be able to even trace back our heritage "before too long most Americans will be 'Tiger Woods' Americans, whose parental heritage is black, Native American, Chinese, Caucasian, and Thai" (488). Just think if two of these 'Tiger Woods' Americans were to have children they may come out a different skin color than white but they certainly wouldn't be considered black or any other race. Yet, they would still get stereotyped for things that typically are for a certain race. Many people in the Hispanic community fall under this form of racism as well. Say a man from the Dominican who may appear black to someone strictly by the color of his skin may have racial slurs thrown his way that are black stereotypes when he has no trace of African ancestry. There could also be a Hispanic man from Argentina who appears white and his appearance to everyone else would subject him to white prejudices, all of these complicated factors could make a whole racial topic of its own.

With these issues of race and where to categorize people asks one question--is there an easy way solve the problem. The best way of course would be to drop race and let us all judge each other off of what really matters, personality. The easiest way though would be to drop the categories from the census ballot so that everyone is the same and cannot be placed in a certain category that does not fit their ethnicity. Another way would be to even drop ethnicity from the options to choose from and instead go by what country you originate from so that those who are categorized with blacks or Hispanics but are not, can be placed into the correct ethnic category.

Knowing what race someone is may be a big part of how you profile someone. That being said can racial profiling actually be used for good resources? In Why Racial Profiling Makes for Dumb Security written by Ahmed Rehab and You Can't Judge a Crook by His Color by Randall Kennedy racial profiling is scrutinized and almost comes to the conclusion that racial profiling can be put to good use, at least for the government.

The government may think profiling can be put to good use because it can help to improve national security by stopping terrorist's threats to our nation. Ahmed Rehab shows why this is outlandish in "Why Racial Profiling Makes for Dumb Security". Rehab presents a debate on the effectiveness of airport security and counter-terrorist intelligence. He begins his article by reminding us of the Nigerian male who tried to commit a terrorist attack on our nation on Christmas 2009. He also says how Americans seemed to have blown it off because this attack was stopped, but he asks why it took passengers on the plane to stop the terrorist instead of the countless other clues airport security had to keep this man from ever getting onto the plane.

Rehab also talks about what a terrorist even looks like anymore, we are no longer just looking for the man who appears to be from the Middle East because it could be anyone.

Realizing that our nations Airport security may be faltering is a scary thought, especially when a lot of these problems could be avoided by unbiased security men and women. I am not sure how many times I have been in an airport waiting for all of my things to go through a metal detector and seeing certain people being asked to step into the special scanners that can see every inch of you beneath your clothes. More often than not I have seen people of Muslim or closely related ethnicities being pulled aside for further