Introduction
Since the attacks of the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001 the United States government has more openly subjected specific ethnic groups to acts of racial profiling in the name of protecting national security in the war on terrorism. These acts have generated feelings of uneasiness and concern for human rights and civil liberties throughout the country.
Having experienced personal acts of discrimination, I can identify with the power that racial profiling has in affecting a person's everyday life. I teach at an urban African American school, George Westinghouse High School. This high school is located in the Homewood-Brushton community of Pittsburgh, Pa. It has an enrollment of 636 African American students. Sixty percent of the student body is eligible for free lunch and three percent are eligible for reduced lunch. The majority of the students are from single parent households with thirty percent earning less than $15,000.00 per year. The Homewood Brushton community is predominantly African American.
Westinghouse High School is the only all African American high school in the Pittsburgh Public School System. Although it has three programs of "magnet" quality, science and math, business and finance, as well as college-preparatory applied studies, it does not receive the honor usually associated with such distinctions, probably because of its location in the Homewood- Brushton community. It does however enjoy a rich tradition of athletic prowess, being one of the five high schools in the country with over five hundred varsity football victories and more city football championships than any other high school. Its alumni include some of the most celebrated and distinguished graduates in the City of Pittsburgh's history: Erroll Garner, Billy Strayhorn, Chuck Cooper, Maurice Stokes, Dakota Stanton, Ahmad Jamal, Bev Smith, Naomi Sims, Mary Lou Williams, Grover Mitchell and Dr. Helen S. Faison, to name a few.
I have listened to many students recount their personal interactions with law enforcement officers. Their experiences have left many of them with unpleasant and bitter feelings towards the police department. The United States government's war on terrorism has opened up the opportunity for me to create a curriculum unit on racial profiling and terrorism to prepare my students to understand and deal with this new national phenomenon better. My curriculum unit will help students define and document the history of racial profiling in the United States, to debate its effectiveness or lack thereof, to explore its unconstitutional violation of human and civil rights. This curriculum unit will in chronological order describe the discriminatory practices of the United States from slavery, the internment of the Japanese during World War II, the atrocities directed at the civil rights movement, the disproportionate laws of crime and drug sentencing, to today's war on terrorism and racial profiling of specific ethnic groups.
Encounters between law enforcement official and adolescents happen all too often, fueled by racial profiling and teenagers' anti-police attitudes. These engagements can result in volatile experiences. It is my sincere desire to develop a curriculum that will educate students to deal effectively with a variety of situations by first providing them with a history of discriminatory practices, so that they have a more complete understanding of the whole milieu; secondly, by making them more aware of their individual rights under the law and instructing them how to handle themselves properly when they are stopped by the police; and thirdly, by having students debate and discuss strategies to counter racial profiling techniques lawfully and peacefully.
I plan to accomplish this in three lessons that basically explain in more detail the three objectives mentioned above. I see this as a perfect opportunity to take a current event and produce a relevant teaching vehicle that can have far reaching and life-long benefits to my students and perhaps the country as a whole.
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