The Fulcrum

Humans use their powers of association to judge the world around them through their knowledge of previous experiences and their subscription to the beliefs of others. The analytical skills of humans are always at work, extrapolating known information to make assumptions about things which they do not, or cannot, know for sure. Thus, in the case of racial profiling, one calls on either what they have learned through others about the characteristics of a certain race or what they have observed themselves. In essence, the controversy over racial profiling hinges on action in response to assumption. Regardless of whether racial profiling occurs in American society today, regardless of whether racial profiling is morally wrong, the ethos of the matter relies on the power of assumption that an individual will exhibit whatever stereotype one has developed in their mind.