Yesterday at 3 p.m. from the front of the Union to the campus police station, 15 University students marched in protest of the practice of racial profiling on campus.
Racial profiling is the policy of law enforcement to stop minority persons for questioning based on their race.
The students were trying to draw attention to a problem that has been in the national spotlight, though inconsistently, for years.
Reason Not Race!, a small group of University students, worked in conjunction with BGSU BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), another group at the University. These groups requested help from the Black Student Union, the Latino Student Union and the NAACP.
While members of these groups did contribute to the more than 200 signatures gathered before Thanksgiving break, their leaders did not march with RNR! and BAMN.
Although signatures are an important contribution to the movement, their physical prescence would have been more influential.
This is not to put all the blame on these organizations. All students who feel concern for the subject should have sacrificed 30 minutes of their day. They would have been making a significant statement not only to the campus police but also to their classrooms by leaving their 2:30 class to participate in a rally.
The fact that this is even an issue, especially on a college campus is disconcerting. Colleges are supposed to be havens of diversity and education.
Racial profiling is inhernently an ignorant practice that singles out persons based on predjudices.
It has been proven ineffective repeatedly, most notably after the Oklahoma City bombing when police were searching for people of Middle Eastern descent.
RNR! and BAMN were trying to draw attention to an issue that most people would agree is unacceptable.
We challenge the entire BGSU community — especially BSU, LSU and NAACP — to combine their efforts in the coming weeks, standing behind RNR! and BAMN to form a unified front. The mass influence that would accompany these minority groups should prove to both the campus police department and the University that racial profiling has absolutely no place in a progressive academic community.
