Draft of letter -Omar .r

Omar Rogers

ENG 1101 CO

12/1/2021

Strategy for black lives will be the audience I’ll be writing to. I’m a black young male looking for a change in racial profiling. I’ve been  racially profiled a couple of times by cops and my community while having a mask on, in the year span of the pandemic . I’d like to reach out to all black men, we’ve all been in a situation where we felt racially profiled. My purpose is to show that Black men that are fighting for the same cause that they are not alone. And to give a voice to a problem I see on a daily basis. The reason my message is important, if no talks about  it will continue to be a problem. We are all the same, just a different color. Every race has a bad group of people, so racially profiling blacks men for other black men’s actions is unpleasant .

           Being racially profiled is not the best feeling, and I’ve been in uncomfortable situations where I felt racially profiled. I just left my house on my way to my friend’s house, I had my face mask on. When I was getting close to walking  into my friend’s entrance, the cops pulled me over. Before I could even make a sudden move they jumped out the car, and told me I fit a description of a crime just to search me. I felt so humiliated, they held me up at the gate for approximately 10mins. People that knew me and my family walked past and were looking. When the officers released me they had no remorse or even cared they wasted my time. Racially profiling somebody because of their skin color or because of their appearance is not right. 

There shouldn’t be a reason why black men should fear going outside with a face mask, It’s mandatory. As you can see in my photo below, you’ll see that white’s are rated less suspicious while blacks are rated the highest. Face masks are one reason for mistaken identity . It’s way harder to recognize a person while they have a face mask on. Which puts the innocent black males in a bad spot. Especially if crime recently happened and you just happen to be going past the scene. A black male wearing a mask in public shouldn’t be a threat to you especially if you have one on too, we are all trying to protect ourselves.

Telling a black male put on a mask is basically telling him to look dangerous especially with the racial stereotype that’s in the world. Stereotypes are formed  and displayed by the media. Media representations that match certain representative characteristics like gender , race , and ethnicity. With set roles in our society. Black men should not be as dangerous as they paint us to be. There are 57.9% white people in federal incarceration, and 38.1% black people in federal incarceration. Why don’t you see stuff like that in the media? White people should be categorized as negative people. For all the harsh acts they put people through physically and mentally, in the past.So why are black people rated most suspicious, or aggressive.View

Why judge when we all commit the same sins. If you really get to know a person you might have more in common then you’ll think. Media has a huge voice and big impact in today’s society. If the media produces positive feed, then the viewers would think more  positive then negative. Reducing discretion and replacing it with prescriptive guidance will allow racial encounters to be less influential. The world needs to realize that racially profiling violates the U.S. Constitution, “everybody has the fundamental right to equal protection under the law”. There was a new bill introduced “ The End Racial and Religious Profiling act”. The bill is designed to eliminate profiling, including data collection to accurately evaluate the extent of the problem. It also requires training for law enforcement officials. We are all born the same way, we all die the same way. It’s time we thrive together.