Racial Profiling Case Study

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Many individuals came across racial profiling even before they really knew what it was. The truth is, it has been happening since the beginning of time. After the occurrence of the attack in 1941 racial profiling because practiced when hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked Pearl Harbor during the World War II. When the Japanese attacked, they destroyed nearly 20 American naval vessels, eight huge battleships, 200 airplanes and killed more than 2,000 American soldiers as well as 1,000 wounded people. The United States were devastated by them and didn’t feel they were safe. As a way of protecting the United States officials saw Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast as a threat to society (Hirschmann, 2006,p …show more content…
A case that showed law enforcement targeting individuals based on personal characteristics was in the Tennessee vs. Garner case. In the case of Tennessee vs. Garner a Memphis police officer was called to a burglary in progress who was taking place in a home. When the police officer saw Mr. Garner flee into the backyard and attempted to get away by climbing a chain-link fence while the officer was commanding for him to stop. The suspect was not seen with any weapons and the police officer still fired his weapon and killed the suspect (Robertson, 2010, p 80). In addition, the officer admitted he was not in fear of his safety and had no evidence that the suspect was armed or dangerous. When Garner’s father went to court because his son’s rights were violated, the court denied him from being right and this is where many people made it seem as if Mr. Garner got shot by the white police officer because he was African American. Since this case many African Americans have made up their own conclusions that this was racial profiling because Garner was killed by a white deputy who had no good reason why he took the action he did which of course is not correct. It is also known for African Americans to be discriminated for personal characteristics. Furthermore, many African Americans fear the police because of the unreasonable force