Colonizers created the racial caste system when they stole my people from their homes in Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trade; our personhood was and continues to be stripped away through white supremacist tactics, e.g., racial profiling, which is intended to demean any group that isn’t white. Racial profiling is described as using stereotypes to suspect someone for having committed a crime or even not belonging in a certain neighborhood. This is due to the beliefs of the colonizers being passed down to the people who run the United States of America today because they are who currently create the narrative. This all stems from the belief that everyone who isn’t white is inferior, hence Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution (3/5 Compromise).). Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Black men in the United states are profiled in a negative light and manner due to the white colonial minded media instilling that idea on the masses. This conclusion is well portrayed in the case of Jordan Davis. On November 23, 2012, (2019 makes & years since Jordan was murdered) Jordan and his other teenaged friends were racially profiled by Michael Dunn, a white male, at a gas station where Jordan Davis was murdered. Michael Dunn claimed that he feared for his life and felt threatened by the “thug music”, which is the story that he told to his wife. This is how Black men are profiled in the United States, as thugs and inferior, while white men are the people who actually do the killing. When Michael Dunn requested for the boys to turn the music down, and they refused, his natural white-man superiority complex kicked in and he instantly began to feel outraged that Black people were not listening to his orders.
From experience I know that being racially profiled hurts because it is so unfair and demeaning to be placed in a box. I know what it feels like to be seen as a thug or assumed to be unintelligent and up to no good. I remember when I was younger when I used to go walk out at night in my white neighborhood, I always tried to look like “one of the good ones”. I always made sure to not wear my hood on because then people would think I was going to rob them, and I was even self-conscious about wearing my du-rags (head scarf) outside. Being placed inside of a box led me to feel the need to prove myself worthy, which as a teenager that was very detrimental to my mental well-being because I felt exactly how the white man wanted me to feel. Black children and teens should be able to comfortably be who they are without constant fear of being racially profiled.
