Racial Profiling is Institutionalized Racism Essay

On the night of February 4th 1999, Amadou Diallo, an unarmed and innocent African immigrant, was gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets while standing in the vestibule of his own apartment building in the Bronx. The officers responsible for Diallos death were part of New York Police Departments elite Street Crime Unit. The plain-clothes officers approached Diallo and pulled their weapons. When Diallo, probably believing they were thieves, pulled out his wallet, the elite officers opened a barrage of 41 bullets on the unarmed black man. nbsp; Witnesses and forensic evidence suggest that the officers fired a second round of shots after a brief pause and that Diallos frame absorbed a majority of the bullets after having hit†¦show more content†¦nbsp; In the past year alone, at least three unarmed black men (Diallo, Malcolm Ferguson, and Patrick Dorismond) were killed in New York City. In all three instances, police were acquitted of all charges. Kenneth Boss of the NYPD has been acquitted of two murders, Amadou Diallo (1999) and Peter Bailey (1997), and is still working as a police officer. nbsp; The Diallo incident is a clear model of how racism operates in this country. Racism is much more complex than feelings or acts of hatred toward another race; it is an institutionalized system of oppression, sharing similarities with sexism, classism, and homophobia but with distinct differences. This institutionalized effort creates an environment where four white men can lynch a Black man and be absolved of all guilt. nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 1) the media plays a major role in the criminalization of Black people, creating stereotypes that are used to justify racial profiling. Diallos neighborhood isnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; portrayed as a cesspool and war zone, and the officers claimed that Diallo fit the description of a rapist in the Bronx; this was their excuse for approaching the victim with deadly force. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 2) law enforcers in general abuse the unnecessary powers they are granted, with fatal results. Officers of the Street Crime Unit are trained to use excessive force in policing a community of color. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Show MoreRelatedI Can Find Racism Anywhere Politically956 Words   |  4 Pages2/21/16 Response Paper You can find Racism anywhere politically, in our government, schools, and especially in law enforcement as well as courts of law. There is a term for this that is called Institutionalized racism. It has been around for years, since the days of slavery in the United States and is still an ongoing issue today. Slavery forever created tensions in race relations in the United States. 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