History Main / Profiling

* ''Series/TheRookie2018'': Doug Stanton, Jackson's new T.O., almost immediately accused a young black man who's reported a crime to them of being a gang member, suspecting that the incident was related. He does this solely based on his race and the flimsiest inference from a single dot tattoo. This is Jackson's first clue that Doug isn't really so nice as he appears.

* Averted with ''Series/{{Martin}}''. Martin is pulled over by a police officer and decides to fight the ticket. While in court he accuses the officer of being racist. The officer disagrees and as evidence asks his wife to stand up. Martin is left speechless when the elegant, black woman in the front row stands and introduces herself.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': Cam (Black) and Arastoo (Iranian) get pulled over by a cop for "driving erratically." Cam insists that Arastoo's driving was fine and his real crime was "driving while brown."

* The police officer in ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonBackToNature'' and its ''Mineral Town'' remakes tends to be distrustful of Won, the token Chinese character. While Won does charge more than the general store for exclusive seeds, he's a completely honest member of the village and doesn't do anything wrong.

* In ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'', Officer Judy Hopps (a bunny) sees Nick Wilde (a fox) acting "suspicious" and enter an ice cream store leading her to follow him inside. Once there, she sees him wanting to buy a jumbo pop for his "son" and she immediately chastises herself for jumping to conclusions. While it does turn out he was running a hustle, her initial evaluation was based primarily on him being a fox.

* In ''Discworld/MenAtArms'', the Night Watch are horrified to hear that [[FantasticRacism speciesist]] copper Mayonnaise Quirke of the Day Watch has dealt with the murder of a dwarf by arresting the first troll he could find who didn't have an alibi. (Especially since they already ''knew'' it wasn't a troll because the door of the victim's workshop was too small for a troll to go through.)

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Sadly this type of thing happens for real, and not just with police or race. Muslims and airports has become a new cliche in light of the September 11 attacks, but youth out at night for example might be targeted for loitering on the basis they might cause trouble, or related they and others depending on their sex or mental disabilities may be discriminated against in seeking employment for example. A very valid topic to cover, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment but one for a site more political]].

[[/folder]]

* Happens to Eddie on ''Series/FamilyMatters''. Carl, suspicious of Eddie's claim, simply gets angry at him for getting another ticket until he speaks to the cops who pulled him over. It turns out the one in charge is indeed a racist jerk.
* Done in ''Series/ThatsSoRaven'', with the show's [[SarcasmMode typical subtlety]] - Raven isn't hired as a sales clerk, while her friend [[TheDitz Chelsea]] is, despite Raven performing much better in the preliminary tests (such as folding and categorizing clothes). Fair enough... but then she has a vision that the manager confessed to not liking black people. So, Raven wears a [[MasterOfDisguise ridiculous disguise]], with a hidden camera, to engineer the confession, which, after much [[HilarityEnsues pratfalling]], she gets. The manager doesn't even try to justify it like the one on ''[[Series/SmartGuy Smart Guy]]'' does - she just cheerily admits to being racist, almost without provocation, to a perfect stranger, in a public place, while working as a salesperson.

* Sadly this type of thing happens for real, and not just with police or race. Muslims and airports has become a new cliche in light of the September 11 attacks, but youth out at night for example might be targeted for loitering on the basis they might cause trouble, or related they and others depending on their sex or mental disabilities may be discriminated against in seeking employment for example. A very valid topic to cover, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment but one for a site more political]].

* There was an episode of ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' where Will and Carlton are driving a very nice car belonging to a friend of Uncle Phil. They get pulled over by the police for driving incredibly slowly, and then arrested with little regard for due process. During this all the writers contrast Will's cynicism with Carlton's [[TheWoobie Woobieish]] optimism in authority figures as he blunders through several actions that a well behaved rich kid can't see the shame but Will tries to advise him against.

--->'''J:''' And just because a black man is driving a fancy car ''doesn't mean he stole it''! Okay, I stole this one, but it's not because I'm black.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': An unfortunate young Quarian on her pilgrimage is being harassed by a volus and a C-Sec officer aboard the Citadel. The volus is in a rage about the supposed theft of his money, which ''had'' to have been the quarian because she had bumped into her earlier. The C-Sec officer speaks only to the volus about the matter and says at least once in conversation, in regards to the quarian, "You know what they're like." Even after she is found innocent, the officer threatens her with arrest for vagrancy if she does not get some permanent housing soon. The player can deliver a pissed off rant from Shepard towards both the volus and the C-Sec officer on the slighted quarian's behalf; if Tali'zora nar Rayya (A quarian party member) is present she will have her own choice things to say.

* Sadly this type of thing happens for real, and not just with police or race. Muslims and airports has become a new cliche in light of the September 11 attacks, but youth out at night for example might be targeted for loitering on the basis they might cause trouble, or related they and others depending on their sex or mental disabilities may be discriminated against in seeking employment for example. A very valid topic to cover, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment but one for a site more political.]]

* There was an episode of ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' where Will and Carlton are driving a very nice car belonging to a friend of Uncle Phil. They get pulled over by the police for driving incredibly slowly, and then arrested with little regard for due process. During this all the writers contrast Will's cynicism with Carlton's [[TheWoobie Woobieish]] optimism in authority figures as he blunders through several actions that a well behaved rich kid can't see the shame but the GenreSavvy Will tries to advise him against.

* On one episode of ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow'', George was told to demote Hosni, an Arab-American employee, from his plane-inspecting position because of his background.

* Several of the tie-ins deal with the profiling aspect more explicitly. ''Comicbook/{{Ms Marvel|2014}}'' has a scene where Kamala's sister-in-law, Ayesha, references how the War on Drugs in the 90's resulted in a lot of young African-Americans getting arrested for either minor crimes, or crimes they flat out didn't even commit. Meanwhile, ''[[Comicbook/NickSpencersCaptainAmerica Captain America: Sam Wilson]]'' has a {{Flashback}} to early on in Comicbook/TheFalcon's career, where he was arrested during a fight with the Trapster because the cops assumed ''he'' was the supervillain because of his skin color.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''Series/TheWestWing''

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:Web Animation]]

[[AC: RealLife]]

* In ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'', Officer Judy Hopps (a bunny) casually assumes Nick Wilde (a fox) is up to no good based soley on his species when she sees him walk into a store. [[spoiler: [[ConMan He is]] up to no good, but it's all technically legal.]]
** To be entirely fair to Judy, she realizes her initial mistake very quickly, [[spoiler:although it takes her most of the rest of the film to recognize her deeper problem.]]

* Several of the tie-ins deal with the profiling aspect more explicitly. ''Comicbook/{{Ms Marvel|2014}}'' has a scene where Kamala's sister-in-law, Ayesha, references how the War on Drugs in the 90's resulted in a lot of young African-Americans getting arrested for either minor crimes, or crimes they flat out didn't even commit. Meanwhile, ''[[Comicbook/NickSpencersCaptainAmerica Captain America - Sam Wilson]]'' has a {{Flashback}} to early on in Comicbook/TheFalcon's career, where he was arrested during a fight with the Trapster because the cops assumed ''he'' was the supervillain because of his skin color.

* This is the main drive of ''ComicBook/CivilWarII'' - a Nuhuman named Ulysses gains that power to see the future in almost perfect clarity. [[ComicBook/MsMarvel Carol Danvers]] believes that Ulysses is a boon, as they can use him to stop crimes before they can start. However [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] doesn't buy it, proclaiming that this ultimately leads to this very trope. In fact, Tony ends up kidnapping Ulysses from the Inhumans so he can figure out what's going on and theorizes that he's influenced by various factors around him. However, the paranoia over his predictions end up causing deaths as [[spoiler:an attempt to stop an invading ComicBook/{{Thanos}} leads to War Machine and She-Hulk's deaths and panic over ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk killing everyone leads to ComicBook/Hawkeye killing a clearly harmless Bruce Banner.]]

* A minor subplot in the ''{{Series/ER}}'' episode "A Thousand Cranes" has Drs. Pratt and Gallant get arrested for a murder committed at a local diner after having been stopped due to this trope, then a bloody shirt was found in the car. Said shirt, [[NotWhatItLooksLike, naturally, was from one of them getting their nose bloodied during a game of basketball earlier that day]].

* A minor subplot in the ''{{Series/ER}}'' episode "A Thousand Cranes" has Drs. Pratt and Gallant get arrested for a murder committed at a local diner after having been stopped due to this trope, then a bloody shirt was found in the car. Said shirt, [[ItsNotWhatItLooksLike, naturally, was from one of them getting their nose bloodied during a game of basketball earlier that day]].

* Averted with Series/{{Martin}}. Martin is pulled over by a police officer and decides to fight the ticket. While in court he accuses the officer of being racist. The officer disagrees and as evidence asks his wife to stand up. Martin is left speechless when the elegant, black woman in the front row stands and introduces herself.