Donovan Montgomery

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102
07 April 2015
This first draft is very sporadic. I feel like my thoughts are all over the place, but I feel as
if the content is good. Once I can figure out how to smoothly transition into new ideas
and make the paper a cohesive whole I feel like this will be a very well written thesis.
Also if anyone has any ideas for a new title they will be greatly appreciated. I also feel
like Im using the word stereotype too much.
Racial Profiling and Stereotyping
stereotype
- A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of
person or thing.
People deal with it and do it everyday, whether it is consciously or unconsciously.
They have a basic desire to feel good about themselves, and we therefore have a
tendency to be unconsciously biased in favor of traits similar to our own, even such
seemingly meaningless traits as our names. Scientists have even identified a discrete area
of the brain, called the dorsal striatum, as the structure that mediates much of this bias
(Mlodinow). They make an assumption of someone based on their gender, age, race, etc.
A lot of people think nothing of it, but for the people if affects it means everything. The
Labeling Theory phenomena shows that people are more likely to conform to the
stereotypes people portray of them, which is one of the main reasons I argue that
stereotyping and racial profiling have little to none benefits in todays society.

There doesnt seem to be a clear-cut answer to why we stereotype certain groups

of people or why stereotyping came to be. It has been around for centuries, and it is being
passed along everyday. Stereotyping is very prevalent in the workplace; the most
common forms are age, gender and race. Sociology studies show that a man and a woman
could be in the same predicament; both have a family, both are the same age, but it is
more likely that the male is to be hired because it is thought that the male will be the
main source of income for the family. While the woman will be seen as a dependent and
her income will be viewed as a surplus for the family, but the stereotypes in the work
place dont stop there.
Bruce Avolio, a professor of business management at the University of
Washington, highlights in is research that younger candidates are more likely to get hired
for a position rather than an older candidate. For example, an interviewer may assume
that, on average, older job applicants have more seniority in their previous jobs relative to
younger applicants. Such an assumption may result in several attributions. Specifically,
the cause of an older worker's unemployment status, if not specified, may be viewed
negatively by raters as attributable to poor prior job performance, technological
obsolescence, or an organization's attempting to get rid of its dead wood. In contrast,
attributions regarding a younger interviewee's unemployment status may be based on
factors such as poor economic or other external conditions that lead to layoffs of the least
senior members of an organization. As in our discussion of differential experience levels,
the employment status of younger and older job applicants could have some bearing on
an interviewer's evaluations, and if left uncontrolled, might inadvertently discriminate
against older job applicants(Avolio 2).

One of the more prevalent types of stereotyping in the workplace is racial. Jose
Zamora was actively seeking employment; sending out 50 to 100 resumes a day, but he
weeks went by and he still wasnt receiving any responses. This led Jose to drop the s
in his name, now changing it to Joe Zamora. A week later his inbox was full. Joe
explained that he had not changed anything on the resume except for the letter s.
Although digital job applications would seem to be the ultimate exercise in colorblind
hiring, numerous studies and applicants have found the opposite. Employers consciously
or subconsciously discriminate against names that sound black or Latino, as reported by
the New York Times. One much-cited study found that applicants with white-sounding
names received 50 percent more callbacks than applicants with black-sounding names, a
significant disparity. (Huffington Post). This coincides with a research study conducted
by Melanie Sartore and George Cunningham. Their purpose was to examine the
influence of socially held stereotypes with the presence of discrimination in
intercollegiate athletics by investigating whether sport-related stereotypes influences
promotability of applicants differing by race and qualification levels (Melanie 1)
Basically stating that the determining factor in whether or not a candidate will be hired
for a coaching position is if they are an older white male; which is proven when one
looks at the racial demographics of NCAA coaching profiles, where while males
dominate by a considerably large margin. The main stereotype that justifies why this
happens is African Americans are often perceived to be physically superior and
intellectually inferior (Melanie 4), but the racial stereotypes dont stop there.
As you may know race has been an ongoing issue since the beginning of time.

In the early period of the United States racial and degrading stereotypes were popular in
the media. Media associated white males with power and progress and women, and
minorities with ignorance and poverty. For example The ideal American was white, midwestern, lived in the suburbs with his wife and children. He was the family breadwinner
and went to church on Sunday; his hobbies were golf and fishing. He smoked cigarettes
and drank martinis after work. He socialized with fellows like him and left parenting and
other household duties to his little lady at home(Racial Stereotypes in the Media). But
as time progressed this type of stereotyping in the media has died down due to the fact
that the media has become much more sensitive to the representations of women and
minorities in todays society.
Stereotyping lead to a new phenomenon known as racial profiling, using an
individuals race or ethnicity as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in
enforcement. Racial profiling is seen as a necessary evil to combat against crime, but is
often overgeneralized to the point where stereotypes of certain groups have become those
of entire races/ cultures. Mathias Risse, a philosophy professor at Harvard, argues, The
moral problem posed by profiling arises only if measures that appear morally problematic
when seen from other angles (such as racial equality) contribute to the provision of a
public good as basic as security. Otherwise, racial profiling would be obviously
illegitimate. Which I completely agree with, but then again the individuals who posses
the power of racial profiling often abuse their power.