Florida lawmaker pushes bill to end FCAT - Essay Example

Widespread reports of racial profiling that led to incidents like the one in Cincinnati, where police violently clashed with black protesters for three days, have called the attention of the public and inevitably, many politicians. Cloud et al observes a nationwide scrambling for legislations banning racial profiling as a tool in police operations. The writers anticipate, however, a problem in implementing a sweeping prohibition of racial profiling as was being contemplated by the End Racial Profiling bill, then pending in 2000 in Congress.

One possible outcome of such a law is a police force hesitant to do their jobs, such as what happened after the Cincinnati riots where arrests dwindled in numbers despite an opposing direction of crime incidences. Another is the unlikely feasibility of a mechanism that could accurately predict when or how racial profiling is actually being committed. The article is a well-written, subtle piece of writing imbuing as much logic and reason to impress the readers of its objectivity to cushion a position that leans towards the less popular view in this highly charged issue.

The general impression that one gets after reading the article is that the writers wanted to impress the American readers of the folly of a sweeping anti-racial profiling law, considering the absence of a mechanism that could exactly measure racial profiling. Thus, the article begins by taking into account the perspectives of police, particularly from one who whines about “guilt by uniform.” The article also points out that there is no exact definition of what racial profiling is and hence, the consequent difficulty in telling the police to stop employing it, as the wrong itself defies precise and conclusive definition (Cloud et al 2).

Still later, it stresses the difficulty in gauging the actual amount of racial profiling being practiced by the police force (Cloud et al 3). Understandably, the writers chose to approach this subject in a very subtle way, presenting facts and reports as much as possible and letting interviewees mouth relevant data, which nevertheless, support the writers’ point. The article does not make much use of ‘pathos’ - the writers seemingly holding back perhaps out of fear that they would be stirring the hornet’s nest.

On the other hand, the writers attempt to resort to the appeal of logic and reason by sprinkling an abundance of interviews, reports and factual accounts of events throughout the article that represented their perspectives rather than enunciating these views themselves. The appeal to logic and reason seems to be employed precisely for the readers to forget the emotional underpinning of the issue, which is not bad except that it makes the writers look like fence-sitters at times with no real position of their own leaving the readers confused as to what their objectives really are.

Thus, as the writers allow some police personnel to recount the gloom that pervades their respective agencies leaving their hands tied with charges of racial profiling looming above their heads like the sword of Damocles, the article followed this up with details of racial profiling incidents such the “flying while black” incident involving the seizure of $7,000 from a black businessman by the DEA on the ground that it was