2. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
Racism and Racial Profiling: Is anyone safe from it?
What is racism and racial profiling? Where did it start and where/
when will it stop? Is it possible to stop? When I hear the term “racial
profiling” I think about police officers trying to assess a potentially
dangerous situation, but does it stop there? Are police officers the only
individuals that use racial profiling? Is racial profiling only about color or
does it pertain to social class as well? Is it ok to use racial profiling for
some people (such as police officers or minorities) or in certain situations
and not ok for others? These are the questions I am going to address in this
paper.
According to George M. Fredrickson racism began when religion
began to develop into a more distinct organization. More specific it was
when the Jewish community refused to accept the New Testimony and
Christian belief. Fredrickson thinks this conflict is what started racism. It
wasn’t about color, it was about belief. Through out the Middle Ages, the
Jewish people were said to be connected to the devil and witchcraft and
that they use Christian’s blood, both young and old, for their most scared
ceremonies, claiming it was to reenact the crucification of Jesus
(Fredrickson, p.11). From this, religious racism spread to Muslims and
Catholics and then to different cultures, eventually evolving into what we
know today as racism. Basically as religious racism developed and
expanded to include all religions it also spread to social classes and ethnic
3. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
groups. By the 1930’s racism took on a whole new realm with the Nazis’.
According to Fredrickson, Hitler gave racism a bad name because of his
fanatical, hideous and open persecution of the Jews (mainly) and other
groups of people that did not fit into the Nazis theories about how life
should be (Fredrickson p.2). As a result to try and explain these theories in
a more simple way the word ‘racism’ was coined (Fredrickson p.5). Since
the Nazis’ fall, racism has taken on a life of its own. Racism exists in
every country, within every culture, at every level, regardless if it is
conscious or unconscious and it only seems to be getting worse. Even
though we no longer have racial segregation or slavery to be a visual
reminder of racism, it does not mean that it has gotten better or went away,
as some have once thought; it just means, we as people, have developed
better skills in camouflaging our prejudices. According to Harrison,
racism is growing in America because of the inflow of new immigrants,
which shifts the balance in majority/minority aspect of our nation. It also
affects the educational systems and the employment rate, which in turn
creates hard feelings in some and can then turn into prejudices (Harrison,
p.65). However, it is very likely that migration is partially responsible for
racism, it is not the only factor involved. Along with migration there is
also social believe systems that are taught from generation to generation
without being questioned and the new developing studies in genetics.
Racial profiling stems from social and individual experiences, i.e. a
belief that states a young black man dressed in baggy clothes sporting red
4. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
or blue color equals a dangerous gang member; this comes from TV,
friends, books, and music (social) and/or personal experience with an
actual gang member. Basically when we hear or see a description image,
we connect that with any and all experiences we might have had and then
we draw a conclusion. This generally happens within seconds and is
usually unconsciously done. In experiments conducted by Leda Cosmides,
John Tooby and Robert Kurzban on perceptions, they found that everyone
who was involved in the experiments, place everyone they see into a racial
categories (profiles) and that it is automatic (Cosmides, al et).
What exactly is racial profiling and does it only pertain to race? By
definition, racism is any prejudice against a person and/or persons based
on race with a belief and attitude that the individual(s) are inferior in some
way, to other races. So racial profiling is a collection of believes toward a
certain race and/or social class that states everyone that fits into that group
is that way; baggy clothes equals gang member. However profiling does
not just pertain to race, it can and does pertain to social class as well.
That being said, who does racial profiling affect? The answer is
everyone, not only are we all victims of racial profiling, we are also
perpetrators of it. It could be that it is out of self preservation, such as a
officer assessing a potentially dangerous situation or personal prejudice,
conscious or unconscious, regardless of where it stems from it still affects
us all.
5. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
In the movie Crash, the police officer named Wally Ryan, acted
racist toward everyone he encountered; i.e. pulling over a black man and
his wife who were driving an expensive SUV. Ryan was upset about a
phone call and used a report of a stolen car to take it out on them. Instead
of letting it slide or calmly checking out his information, he allowed and
contributed to the escalation of the situation, which resulted in him
sexually abusing the wife. This painted him as a bad man, however in the
next scenes he was trying to take care of his ill father. Towards the end of
the show he showed great kindness, respect and remorse toward the lady
he had abused earlier as he was trying to free her from her overturned
SUV. Does the first behavior make him a bad man or does it all of it made
him a man that makes bad choice sometimes? Once more, does it make the
racial behavior worse because he is white and she was black? It seems as
though society thinks so. Another scene in the movie shows Ryan talking
to his father’s insurance company about getting help for him and was
frustrated with the woman (Shanyqua Johnson) he was talking to,
eventually making a racial slur toward her. At the end of the movie Ms.
Johnson was in an accident and began using racial slurs toward the other
driver. I asked 20 different individuals to comment on these two scenes;
out of 20 individuals, only one thought that both scenes were racially
charged, the others felt that when Ryan made his remark toward Johnson
that it was inappropriate and offensive, whereas they felt Johnson’s
remarks toward the other driver (although worse than Ryan’s remark) was
6. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
understandable because she had been in an accident. I think the difference
in attitude towards the two scenes was because Ryan was white and
Johnson was black, and the other driver was Middle Eastern, and most
people have white man’s guilty and a deep seeded fear toward Middle
Eastern cultures since 9-11. However, no matter how you look at it the
behavior is the same—racist. So is racism and racial profiling specific to a
single group? I say no it is not, again I think that all groups are guilty of it,
though it seems more prominent between white and blacks.
So what motivates racism and racial profiling? Well there are
many factors. I have categorized them into three general groups; fear, lack
of knowledge and belief systems. Fear can and usually does go hand in
hand with lack of knowledge, however there is a true or real fear that leads
to racial and/or social profiling; i.e. a person who has been or is being
abused by someone who yells and screams before hitting them will
generally view and profile any individual who yells as an abuser. This
stems from personal experiences, however fear that stems from lack of
knowledge is different. It is prejudices that are acquired through someone
else knowledge (much like belief systems) without ever finding out for
oneself; i.e. The Harry Potter books are evil because that’s what so and so
said, without ever reading them for their self. A belief system is passed
down from generation to generation; it is automatic and mostly
unconsciously done.
7. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
Now I ask what, if anything, can be done to fight and counteract
this behavior? According to Shanklin, anthropologist and teachers should
discuss race and racism in all its forms more openly (Shanklin), meaning
that the trend of the racism topic has turned more toward no discussion at
all, when it needs to be talked, written and taught more openly and
directly. By doing so we will be able to start and continue to change our
society. In Beyond Racism Roger Echo-Hawk and Larry Zimmerman state
that “the scrutiny of racism as a cultural practice is well established in
scholarship and in American public discourse.” In which Margaret
Wetherell and Jonathan Potter concur by stating that everyday discourse,
casual conversations, newspapers, advertising, popular histories- create
and keep alive racism in subtle and unconscious ways. Wetherell and
Potter think racism is rooted in society and becomes more prominent when
the distribution of power is unequal, which means that the remedy for
racism, in any and all forms, can only come by the reconstruction of
society (Wetherell and Potter). According to Echo-Hawk and Zimmerman
the only ways to reconstruct society is by using what we have learned
about racism and racial profiling and apply it to our society and our
personal lives (Beyond Racism). This will only happen if at least the
majority of individuals start to question everything that goes on in society
and our personal lives and why it happens that way and if there is a better
way of going about it.
8. Amanda Tetz
Anthropology 430
Final term Paper
Inst.: Christian Petersen
References:
Cosmides, Leda; Tooby, John; Kurzban, Robert. Perceptions of race. TRENDS in
Cognitive Sciences. Vol. 7 No. 4 April 2003
Echo-Hawk, Roger; Zimmerman, Larry J. Beyond Racism. American Indian Quarterly.
Vol. 30 No. 3 & 4 Summer and Fall 2006
Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A short history. Princeton University Press. 2002 pp.
2,5,11
Harrison, Faye V. The Persistent Power of “race” in the Cultural and Political Economy
of Racism. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1995 24:47-74
Shanklin, Eugenia. Representations of Race and Racism in American Anthropology.
Current Anthropology. Vol. 41 No. 1 February 2000
Wetherell, Margaret; Potter, Jonathan. Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and
the Legitimation of Exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press 1993 p. 70, 219
Crash. Lions Gate Entertainment 2004
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