Two African American ladies sit down at the table and peruse the dinner menu. From across the restaurant the waiter on the way to the table sighs and says under his breath “ here we go again, here comes another $0.50 tip for a lot of hard work”. Much to his surprise though when the ladies leave he returns to the table to find a generous 20% tip left for him for all his hard work. That waiter is me.
             So there I am sitting in the library for at least 45 minutes racking my brain and going through about ten books trying to decide what the heck I’m going to write this paper on. There are so many sub-categories on the topics of race and gender issues that it made my decision very difficult. As I sat there wondering where I was going to get 10 pages of material for a paper I thought about myself and my own views on racial profiling. I guess I never really categorized myself as a racist but the more I think about it the more I realize that I make assumptions based on race and the situation described above happens to me on a weekly basis. Am I a closet racist? Are there different degrees of being a racist? Is it just a case of social conditioning? In this paper I am going attempt to expose racial profiling for what it is.
             Racial profiling happens hundreds of times a day in this country. It’s “O.K.” when it is used for looking at a job application for the purpose of hiring the right number of people of color or the right number of minorities to accomadate the federally mandated Affirmative Action. However, racial profiling is not “O.K.” when a minority is stopped or arrested by the police just for the simple act of being a minority.
             Santa Monica, California Two officers in police cruisers, followed George Washington and Darryl Hicks, both African-American men, as they drove into the parking garage of the hotel where they were staying in Santa Monica. The men were ordered out...