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Profiles in Prejudice
by Robert Nolan
Medill News Service
WASHINGTON -- Young minorities, particularly black and Latino men, continue to be the victims of racial discrimination and profiling more than any other ethnic group, according to a new poll.
Results of the ongoing survey -- conducted by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, Harvard University and The Washington Post -- reveal that 34 percent of young adults aged 18 to 25 said they have been the victims of racial discrimination over the past 10 years. That's more than one in three.
"The numbers are a reflection of what the NAACP and many other organizations have been saying for years," said Jeff Johnson, director of the youth, college and young adults branch of the NAACP in Baltimore. "Racial profiling is a tactic that continues to be used to intimidate people, and needs to be addressed not only on a personal grass-roots level, but on a national, legislative level as well."
While racial profiling cases involving law enforcement have gained much attention in the media, incidents that are not so easy to classify often go undocumented.
Poor service, being treated with disrespect and inciting fearful, defensive behavior because of ethnicity are some of the more subtle types of discrimination that many blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans surveyed said they'd experienced at least "once in a while."
"One in three young adults is a very significant and scary number," said Mollyann Brodie, who helped conduct the survey for the Kaiser Foundation. "The results are something the country should take very seriously."
According to the survey, which polled a nationally representative sample of 1,709 adults, 37 percent of black Americans reported being unfairly stopped by police, while 20 percent of Hispanics said the same.
The survey follows anti-racial profiling legislation that was introduced into Congress this month by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
The proposal would require law enforcement departments to keep statistics on the ethnicity of violators who are pulled over and would direct federal funds into officer education for cultural awareness.
"Nearly every single young African-American male has been subjected to it," Conyers said in a press conference earlier this month. "The message that it sends tragically to young people is that the criminal justice system belittles the worth of young African-Americans, and that is a message we don't want young people growing up with."
Other legislation that challenges racial profiling has been introduced by the District of Columbia's representative in Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, whose bill hopes to stop the practice by withholding federal highway funds from states that fail to combat racial profiling.
Both the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses in Washington have expressed support for the bill.
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