Dear President, 

Right after I immigrated to the U.S. precisely in 2014, in that time period a lot of tensions were happening between the police and the certain communities, implying some shootings and arrests toward those communities unfairly, which I never witnessed before. My name is Mouhamadou Ndiaye, I am from Senegal and I am a current resident of U.S. since 2014 in New York precisely in Brooklyn. I am currently attending the Brooklyn International High School which I will graduate from in June 2017. I am identifying myself as a black and it is very hurtful seeing folks with the same skin color as me undergoing such of injustice. This could tear apart our feeling toward this free country, a peaceful place where every single person in the whole world wants to come here. I think the U.S. is being populated by multiple races and which are different to one and others also very fundamental. I believe the law should be applied to everyone no matter who you are or where you belong because in front of the Constitution everyone is equal.

The law should be applicated equally and fairly to everyone so that it will make everyone feel comfortable. For instance, Tim Bloomberg in the article titled "Issue Overview: Racial Profiling" stated that “African-Americans accounted for 85 percent of all traffic stops and received 90 percent of traffic tickets. Likewise, 93 percent of the people arrested by Ferguson police over the last two years were black.” This shows how unfairly the law is being applied in the community and also targeting the certain type of color mostly blacks or Hispanics. Moreover, in the same article, he says also, “Polls show that whites and nonwhites have different views on the fairness of U.S. law enforcement.” This misunderstanding on what is fairness may make things worse than it is and also may bring some confusion on how the law should be applied. Furthermore, he said also that “While laws restrict racial profiling in 30 states, there’s no uniform standard regulating local police departments, whose officers make the vast majority of arrests.” This tells us even where the practice of the racial profiling is prohibited, some police officers are still using it when they are making arrests, which is going against the restrictions made in the law.

I believe the law should be applied to everyone no matter who you are or where you belong because in front of the Constitution everyone is equal. I think it is not impossible to attenuate the extent of this problem because this issue does concern everybody not only those who are affected. This could be tackled by having training for the police officers where it allowed the police officer to be more aware or know more about the diversity that exists in the U.S. today. This also helps the officer to understand the specificity of each different type of culture that is in the US. That will make them avoid doing the racial profiling which is wrong to do. Improving the criminal justice system of the U.S. would make a great impact in all the community, also would prevent the officers from the using racial profiling as a method to apply the law. President, this problem is really important for all of us. In one way or another, it does affect all of us because we the people need the police help to keep the society in order and also the police need us too. Addressing this big issue would be your greatest success in your whole presidency and it is a win-win for all of us.

Sincerely,

Mouhamadou

References

Tim Bloomberg, retrieved on 10/31 newsela.com/articles/overview-racial-profiling/id/20944/

Stephen Deere and Chuck Raasch March 5 2015, retrieved on 10/31 https://newsela.com/articles/ferguson-report/id/7822/