School officials at the University of Minnesota are working with black student and facility organizations after they wrote a letter to the school's president about the racial descriptions given in crime alerts.
The organizations wrote that while campus safety is crucial, the profiling can be devastating for black male students.
"[We] unanimously agree that campus safety should be of the UMPD's utmost importance; however, efforts to reduce crime should never be at the expense of our Black men, or any specific group of people likely to be targeted. In addition to causing Black men to feel unsafe and distrusted, racial profiling is proven to inflict negative psychological effects on its victims."
At Wednesday's forum, Ian Taylor Jr., president of the Black Men's Forum, said members of his organization feel threatened when the use of a racial description is given in the crime alerts.
"The repeated black, black, black suspect," Taylor said. "And what that does it really discomforts the mental and physical comfort for students on campus because they feel like suspicions begin to increase."
They could report the suspect looked like Obama thirty years ago. |