Dear Madame/Mr. President:

Since the dawn of time people have only seen with their eyes and not their mind. The projection of one's fear and ignorance into a race or ethnicity should have stayed in the 1700s. We as a society should have learned long ago that we are all one race the human race. Some people might think that Racial Profiling has just come up in our time, but it has been circling around in our world since we believed color defined a human's morals or beliefs. Police officers are supposed to protect and serve anyone in need but lately in our society the protection has turned into brutality and the serve is no longer there.

It agonizes me to witness such unfairness in our world that we should have crushed a long time ago; innocent people of race and ethnicity are being picked out from others and being treated less than an animal. I thought America was the place for Freedom and opportunity, but I look around i’m seeing such cruelty and arrogance in people's hearts. Such as a innocent black man being shot in his own car because he tried to reach for his insurance or the raging epidemic. Michael Brown, yes, he did rob a convenience store of a few cigarillos but being shot and killed over a stupid mistake seems extreme.  We need to take a step back from ourselves and realize this is a human being and no one should have died over a few cigarettes or anything pity for that matter.

In a Washington Post article the writer  informs people that the police are twice more likely to pull over a black or Hispanic person  than a white person, and  they are more likely to get searched but 10 out of 9 are clean. Also civilrights.org has a article on the police being unfair to a human with color . Empirical evidence, confirms the existence of racial profiling on America's roadways. At the national level, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that for the year 2005, the most recent data available, Police actions taken during a traffic stop were not uniform across racial and ethnic categories." "Black drivers (4.5%) were twice as likely as White drivers (2.1%) to be arrested during a traffic stop, while Hispanic drivers (65%) were more likely than White (56.2%) or Black (55.8%) drivers to receive a ticket. In addition, Whites (9.7%) were more likely than Hispanics (5.9%) to receive a written warning, while Whites (18.6%) were more likely than Blacks (13.7%) to be verbally warned by police." When it came to searching minority motorists after a traffic stop, "Black (9.5%) and Hispanic (8.8%) motorists stopped by law enforcement were searched at higher rates than Whites (3.6%).

The effects of this issue can literally go on until the end of time.  To start off with the people who are literally being shot and killed because of their color. The young minds that are growing up believing the police are not here to help you and to try and stay away from then with all the violence and unfairness going around how are they supposed to know any better. People are losing faith in law enforcement and maybe the people will think to handle a deadly situation because calling the cops is not an option. This is brings out the racism in people that is still there, but buried underneath at leas,t but now it's rising and there's no justice. Breaking the constitution from the ones that are supposed to follow every word. On the other hand, the police are not bad people just some are blind to humanity and i believe they need more training than what they go through and have to analyze situations where a weapon is necessary because right now they seem scared and loss cannons.

Not everything has one side or one story to it and I know there may be times, there's not much an officer can do when the situation is out of control and not every officer is racist and abuses their power. Being a police officer might be one of the hardest jobs and, things can wear then down and they have to separate their jobs from their own life but it can be difficult at times seeing how cruel others can be. Sometimes they don’t even know if they're coming back home from work that day. But this gives them no right to take someone else's life that is giving them no threat or reason to take force. I believe bringing police officers to racial neighborhoods to help out and for them to witness what they have to obtain on a everyday basis can open up their minds slowly but surely.

Sincerely;

Ella M.