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Antony Parada Porron

Professor Batty
English 114A
15 October 2014
The Struggle of the Misunderstood
Racial profiling is a problem that has effected immigrants in the past but now it is
effecting Americans in our modern society, an issue that has been brought up many times but
nothing is being done about it. But there have been people spreading the awareness of the current
racial issue, whether it is political cartoon or part of a literature work. To be clear racial profiling
is when one uses someones ethnicity as grounds to accuse someone of committing an offence.
Thanks to people like Mike Keefe an American editorial cartoonist, Brent Staples an author and
editorial writer for the New York Times, and myself, we are bringing more awareness of this
issue either through the media or speaking on personal experience. Racial profiling is normal for
me unfortunately when I walk the streets back home I usually am followed by a patrol car and
when I go into a store a police officer would go in to talk to the owner, and when I leave he
leaves. And this not only happens to me but other people in my community. But Mike Keefe
made had decided to spread awareness of racial profiling by illustrating it.
In his cartoon which was published on The Denver Post, Mike Keefe illustrates the racial
profiling that is currently happening in the state of Arizona. In the image we see two officers
stopping a Hispanic man who is driving, we also see one officer pointing a gun at him saying
Step out of the vehicle and place your hands on your head, while the other officer is comparing
the Hispanic man skin tone with a skin tone chart. Also on their uniforms and patrol car we can
see the abbreviation for Arizona AZ. This depicts the issue of racial profiling clearly the

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reason why these two officers are stopping the man is because he is Hispanic. There is an issue
that Arizona is currently facing and that is illegal immigration. Now I can understand that this is
a serious issue, but what this image is telling is that the officers are stopping any Hispanic person
because they think they are illegal immigrants. And it ties back to racial profiling why did they
stop him? We dont know if he is illegal; furthermore, why point a gun at him and tell him to
step out of the car like he is a criminal. Thats what racial profiling means using the ethnicity or
racial background as grounds to accuse someone of an offence. That is what these men are doing
they stopping him because he is Hispanic therefore he is illegal. Which in my mind is just plain
out offensive and racist, but also an author by the name of Brent Staples wrote an article
expressing his personal experiences with racial profiling.
In his article Black Men and Public Spaces written in 1986, Brent Staples covers the
experience he had as being a black man in the late 1960s. He begins his article with an
encounter with a white women who was described to be middle class, he starts off with My first
victim was a women- white (182). He made himself seem like he committed a crime against
this women even though he didnt do anything. But after reading his article I believe his reason
for introducing himself as a criminal was because he was being looked at as a criminal. Staples
later states the way he dressed, walked, postured, and skin color made the women think he was a
criminal. As a student of University of Chicago he worked as a journalist for a local paper. When
he came rushing into the companys building staff members immediately thought he was a
mugger. He had to run from security to get to his editor in order to clear up the misunderstanding.
They thought he was a mugger because he is black he didnt dress in any way to make himself
look like a mugger. But that was not the only experience he had that he was looked at as a
criminal. According to the text he was going to interview someone for the local paper he was

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working for, but he was early so he decided to enter a jewelry store to kill some time. As he enter
the store the owner of the store took one look at him and went to the other room, and she brought
back a dog. She had the dog on a leash and pointed it at Staples. He notice and took one last look
around the store and bid the lady a good day. The owner didnt even bother to welcome Staples
she rather launch a dog at him because of the color of his skin. And his experiences have fully
connected with the issue of racial profiling. Yes he is black, yes the black community is currently
having problems, but that does not mean that all black people are criminals. I live in this so,
called hood, and my neighbors are black, but they are some of the nicest people I have ever
met. After thinking about it I believe I have found the source of the problem.
We as children look up to our parents, and whatever they do we believe it to be right. So
what happens when a child is raised in a racist home well the child develops hatred towards other
ethnicity groups. Another issue would be what happens when a child is raised in a broken home
that child grows up not knowing what is right from wrong. You see the way parents are raising
their children is the source of the problem. If we can teach our children that being different is
fine then we can make a huge change in our current society, but I believe that it will be a while
until the issue of not only racial profiling but racism in general can be fixed.
In conclusion, racial profiling is indeed a big issue in our time of age we are being told
different stories and being shown different images of racism, but we are afraid to do something
about it. Everyday people are being affected by stereotypes and the pain of being racially
profiled, the only way to change this is by first changing the way we think and then passing that
knowledge onto our children so they can know that being different is ok. And if we can do that
then I believe the world will be a brighter place to live in.

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