Racial profiling is usually defined in a law enforcement context. One study published in the Canadian Review of Policing Research defined it as "a racial disparity in police stop and search practices, customs searches at airports and border-crossings, in police patrols in minority neighbourhoods and in undercover activities or sting operations which target particular ethnic groups."
The Ontario Human Rights Commission took a broader approach, defining it as "any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin rather than on reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment."
First Ethics Café of the Year: Racial Profiling
by Carolina Arias Novoa (year 31, Colombia)
When I was at home I used to be all right with the idea of profiling, since the rate of delinquency is very high and the public city resources are very limited. However, when I came to Canada and got to know about racial profiling that involved ethnicity, I started questioning myself about the legitimacy of targeting people, especially when racial profiling most of the times affects minorities and people who are more vulnerable to face social and government failures.
Due to this concern I decided to run an ethics café where I could explore the topic in a more broad and international sense. One of my ideas, for instance was to compare the effects of racial profiling in the world and between communities not as diverse as Canada like Colombia, my home country.
While I was preparing for the event in the Pearson Ethics Activity I also got to know more about the reasoning behind racial profiling and the consequences of applying this kind of security system, which allowed me to recognize the ethics of racial profiling from different perspectives. It has advantages (preventing unsafe situations, supporting values that are important for some countries such as security) and disadvantages (racial discrimination). These new ideas gave me a better understanding of the issues and ideas for questions I could pose during the café.
After the discussion, I thought the activity had been fruitful for the community in three ways: it was informative for people who did not know what racial profiling is and why it is used, it was an opportunity for those who did not believe that racial profiling exits to look at specific examples, and it was an opportunity for members of the community to reflect on their own attitude about the issue as well as their country's.
I feel good about doing this ethics café because it is relevant to all of us at Pearson, where more than half of us have been through an examination in airports and especially when a week after running the café one of my fellow years at the college from Maldives felt the effect of racial profiling during project week. He could identify the situation was a discriminative use of racial profiling and that he could respond in responsible way.
NEXT: WILDERNESS HIKE