Open Mic: Racial profiling in police departments leads to "thug" stereotype

As a young white male, it's often difficult for me to talk about racism and feel confident I know what I'm talking about.

But there is one issue I have experience with, and that's racial profiling and how it leads to mugshots and headlines which perpetuate the unfortunate "thug" stereotype in sports.

While covering the Longhorns football team, I saw my fair share of arrests and citations. Two of them still trouble me, and both involve Tyrell Gatewood.

A week before Texas-Ohio State II, Gatewood and fellow defensive back Tarrell Brown were pulled over and issued citations for weapons and drug charges. There's no disputing the cops were justified in issuing the tickets (the charges were later dropped after more facts came out).

The troubling part is that they got Tasered, and the cops thought they were being nice to the guys. The weapon was out and one of the players who had been sleeping flinched when an officer yelled, according to a spokesman at a press conference, so he and the other were Tasered into submission.

When we asked if the police thought they were justified in that use of force, they acted like Gatewood and Brown should be lucky they weren't shot.

If a good ole boy had his pistol out, there would be no Tasering, guaranteed. But because there were three black men riding in an SUV (former Longhorn Aaron Harris was driving and copped to the marijuana in the cup holder), the cops were automatically on edge and assumed they were violent.

But that's nothing compared to what happened to Gatewood last season.

Gatewood was ticketed for driving under the influence of a prescription cough syrup, or "lean." Its' not that he was pulled over, but why, that is so blatantly racist it made me angry to write it then and makes me angry right now.

He was pulled over for - are you ready for it? - not signaling to turn at a stopsign 100 feet before stopping.

Yeah, that's what I said, too.

Is it a law? Yes. Is it EVER enforced? No. The truth is that Gatewood was pulled over because he was a young black man in Austin, Texas, driving a new Plymouth PT Cruiser.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have been punnished for having the drugs. But he shouldn't have been stopped like he was.

The point of these stories is this: One reason black athletes are the ones making negative headlines is because they are pulled over, ticketed and arrested more often because racial profiling still exists among police, especially in southern cities.

I've heard many stories of white athletes in other sports at UT who partied hard and did stupid stuff, but never once had a cop so much as look their way.

But a black athlete turns on his turn signal a little too late (that is the ONLY reason given, by the way. No swerving and no speeding involved) and he gets pulled over?

That's racial profiling by police at its worst, and it's part of the reason why the "thug" stereotype in sports may never fully disappear.