By Selwyn Duke

There were many email responses to my piece titled "Stereotyping 101," including a minority in which readers expressed disfavor with my acceptance of what has incorrectly been called "racial profiling."  Below are two of those emails, followed by my refutations.

Dennis Fouridis writes:

Dear Mr Duke,

Racial profiling is racial profiling. I dont care
how you sugar coated.Where is the profiling for the rest of the breeds that
reside in this country.If there is one, thats illegal and anethical too.
""Racial profiling, also known as Racial Stereotyping, is the
inclusion of racial
or ethnic
characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a
particular type of crime (see Offender Profiling).
Towards the end of the 20th century in the United States, the
practice became controversial among the general public as the potential for
abuse by law enforcement came to
light.Civil rights advocates are against the use of racial profiling tactics by
the police. They argue that the disproportionate number of convicted minorities
is due to "racial profiling".""That is how  you  legally defined
it.

I am white and I was a cop once.I was a city cop in
one of the biggest US cities in the South. It was a job with lots of headaches
and very little rewards.Pay was not great and the hours where long. It was a job
that I took a lot of pride of doing. Then I finished college and later I got a
better paying job ,my own boss as an engineer. You can not categorize people or
stereotype without crossing the line. It does not matter if is true or faulse.
This kind of c*** got the legal system in the sorry state that is now in.
Justice for all , everybody is equal , nobody is above the law and on and on…
You cannot have it with racial profiling. You got
to see it for what it is. I am sending you this email because I read  your
article on News with Views. Freedom of speach has nothing to do with profiling
the citizens that you sworn to serve and protect. That is my opinion since I ve
seen this type of profiling in action and it really sucks. Worked with plenty of
officers that reffered to manuals similar to  this one to violate citizens
rights in the name of the law. Color or race grouping should not have anything
to do with enforcing the law. It does not matter what I wish my country was I ve
got to take it for what it is and  make the best out of it. A melting pot that
seems to get worsh by the day with a corporate America running it, using everything they can to divide and conquer for their own
gains and interests.

Regards,

Dennis Fouridis

C. Skipp writes:

So Selwyn, are you saying that racial stereotype
perpetrations are useful in terms of law enforcement? For  instance, if the cops
pull over a white person, they should check their list of stereotypes under
"white" and conclude that this b*****d must be a white collar criminal for
instance, as opposed to say a low level drug peddler, which would be more in
line if the detained were black?  I would rather have law enforcement folks
using their brains rather than some racist training film to steer their
"investigations."

C. Skipp

Dear Dennis and C.,

Thank you for writing.  I’m going to tackle both of your emails together since you’re basically on the same page. 

First, in reality, there is no such thing as "racial profiling"; it’s much like when the media call semi-automatic rifles "assault weapons," in that it’s an emotionally-charged term designed to manipulate public opinion and facilitate an agenda.  I will expand upon this and the topic in general, and to do so I will print excerpts both from my articles on the subject and those of Dr. Walter Williams, the black economics professor and pundit.

The following is from my piece "Time for Less Defiling and More Racial Profiling":

I
am a member of the most profiled group in the country.  Now, upon
seeing my fair skin, brown hair and blue eyes, you may wonder what I’m
talking about.  Well, I’m referring to the fact that I’m a man, and law
enforcement views men much more suspiciously than women because men
commit an inordinate amount of the crime. 

Now,
this truly doesn’t bother me but invidious double-standards certainly
do raise my ire.  If it’s just to apply this standard to men, then it’s
only right to apply the exact same standard to all other groups that
commit an inordinate amount of the crime.  Moreover, if profiling based
on racial characteristics is immoral, constitutes racism and must be
eliminated, then profiling based on sex also is immoral, constitutes
sexism and should be eliminated with the same vigor.  What’s sauce for
the goose is sauce for the gander.
 

 When
considering what utter nonsense the anti-“racial-profiling” argument
is, understand why I have the term in quotation marks.  To whit: there
really is no such thing as “racial-profiling.”  It’s simply a term –
much like “assault weapon” as applied to semi-automatic rifles – that’s
being used to manipulate the public’s emotions.  In reality, there are
only two types of profiling: good profiling and bad profiling.  Let’s
examine the difference.
 

Profiling
is simply a method by which law enforcement can determine the
probability that a given individual has criminal intent or has
perpetrated a certain crime.  When assessing this probability, many
criteria are taken into consideration.  Some of these have to do with
sex, age, style of dress, mannerisms that bespeak of nervousness and,
yes, some have to do with race.  Whatever the elements may be – and
what preceded was just a short list – good profiling involves
assessment of all relevant criteria, without regard for individual
feelings or the political flavor of the day.  Bad profiling, though, is
quite different.
 

Bad
profiling doesn’t involve consideration of all the criteria that fall
within the boundaries of good criminology’s determinations, but rather,
only those that fall within the boundaries of the politically-correct
thought police’s machinations.  And this is folly, because when you say
that only politically-correct criteria are fair game and that
politically-incorrect ones are not, you render profiling something less
than what it was designed to be: a truly effective law enforcement tool
that thwarts crime and saves lives.

Then, here is what Dr. Williams has said on the subject:

God, or some other omniscient being, would
never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He’d know who is
and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing.
While a god would have perfect and complete information about
everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete
information. That means we must use substitutes such as guesses and
hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out that some
physical attributes are highly correlated with other attributes that
are less easily, or more costly, observed.

Let’s look at a few, and the associated "profiling," that
cause little or no controversy. Mortality rates for cardiovascular
diseases were approximately 30 percent higher among black adults than
among white adults. The Pima Indians of Arizona have the world’s
highest known diabetes rates. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common
among black men as white men. Would anyone bring racial profiling
charges against a doctor who routinely ordered more frequent blood
tests and prostate screening among his black patients and more glucose
tolerance tests for his Pima Indian patients? Of course, God wouldn’t
have to do that because He’d know for sure which patient was more prone
to cardiovascular disease, prostate cancer and diabetes.

It is clear, whether we like it or not, or want to say it or
not, that there is a strong correlation between terrorist acts and
being a Muslim, and being black and high rates of crime. That means if
one is trying to deter terrorism and in some cases capture a criminal,
he would expend greater investigatory resources on Muslims and blacks.
A law-abiding Muslim who’s given extra airport screening or a black
who’s stopped by the police is perfectly justified in being angry, but
with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with
those who’ve made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with
those who’ve made blacks and crime synonymous. The latter is my
response to the insulting sounds of car doors locking sometimes when
I’m crossing a street in downtown Washington, D.C., or when taxi
drivers pass me by.

It would be a serious misallocation of resources if airport
security intensively screened everyone. After all, intensively
screening someone who had a near zero probability of being a terrorist,
such as an 80-year-old woman using a walker, would not only be a waste
but it would take resources away from screening a person with a much
higher probability of being a terrorist.

Then, just to place profiling in even greater perspective, here’s another excerpt from my piece:

Let’s
say you walk down the street and see a pack of rough-hewn young men
walking toward you and, quite prudently, you walk to the other side.
Well, guess what?  You’ve just engaged in profiling.  Based upon the
appearance of the individuals your common-sense informed you that the
probability was high that they posed a danger, and you acted based upon
that assessment. 

Now, Dennis, you said something very telling.  I quote you:

"You can not categorize people or
stereotype without crossing the line. It does not matter if is true or faulse [sic]."

Interestingly, I was just talking to someone in the media about an
appearance I’m going to make.  During the conversation I happened to
say that it was important to disseminate the Truth.  His response was,

"We don’t want to do too much of that; it scares people."

If you’re not speechless, you should be.  Sadly, though, Dennis, what you have said is no different. 

It always matters if it’s the Truth.   

The  Truth will set you free.  To be out of touch with Truth is
synonymous with being out of touch with reality.  And if people in
general aren’t in touch with reality, they can’t make the correct
decisions with respect to who to elect, what policies to embrace, what
social codes and traditions to uphold, etc.  When this is the case,
they make the wrong decisions and their civilization is imperiled.

Not surprisingly,  I mentioned something about this very subject in "Stereotyping 101."  To wit:

"They [the thought police] are turning us into an ideological state, a place where ideology
isn’t rejected when it departs from Truth but Truth is rejected when it
departs from ideology."

We must never, ever, ever place ideology ahead of Truth.
Ideologies, philosophies and ideas are to be evaluated under the light
of Truth, not the other way around.  And if an ideology is contradicted
by or not in accord with Truth, guess what?

That ideology is in error.

It may be painful to contemplate, it may require one to eat crow, it
may not feel right (neither does resisting destructive temptations),
but that’s reality.  People may have been telling you that something is
so since you were young, but the fact remains that if it doesn’t accord
with reality, it needs to be re-evaluated.  As G.K. Chesterton said,

"A fallacy doesn’t cease to be a fallacy simply because it becomes a fashion."

And the true test of open-mindedness is not whether one is open to what is in fashion, but what is out of it.   

Now, C, to quote you again.

So Selwyn, are you saying that racial stereotype
perpetrations are useful in terms of law enforcement? For  instance, if the cops
pull over a white person, they should check their list of stereotypes under
"white" and conclude that this bastard must be a white collar criminal for
instance, as opposed to say a low level drug peddler, which would be more in
line if the detained were black?  I would rather have law enforcement folks
using their brains rather than some racist training film to steer their
"investigations."

The
excerpts I printed already address this in a great measure, but I’ll
say a few more things.  The word "stereotypes" has a negative
connotation, but we shouldn’t be blinded by semantics.  Call them
generalizations, observations about human nature and cultural
differences, or whatever one wishes.  The bottom line is that if they
relate valid information about reality, they are useful.

Thus, I would expect law enforcement to consider stereotypes
pertaining to sex, age, dress, religion, choice of automobile and, yes,
race.  I would expect such officials to consider anything that involves
pertinent information, that places them in closer touch with reality
when executing their duties. 

And isn’t this what "using their brains" is all about?  Are you
using your brain when you ignore or rationalize away relevant and valid
information for political reasons?  Or, are you using your brain when
you consider all such information, regardless of what social engineers
might say?  Think about it.

Then, C., you mentioned whether profiling should be applied to white people, so here is another excerpt from my piece: 

As
I understand it, the science of profiling originated in the behavioral
sciences units of the FBI.  They wanted to maximize their chances of
tracking down serial killers, so their psychologists developed a
profile of the average serial killer, which allowed agents to narrow
down a list of suspects as much as possible.  What’s noteworthy,
however, are the elements of which the profile consisted.  Among other
things, their findings showed that serial killers tended to be loners,
middle-aged and, mercy me, of a certain racial background.  Funny,
though, back then there was no hue and cry about the injustice of
“racial-profiling.”  Why?  Call me crazy, but it might have had
something to do with the race that was being targeted: the Caucasian
one. 

Most
definitely, when it’s a matter of white people receiving the focus in
the hunt for a psychopath or being stopped when driving fancy cars in
minority neighborhoods late at night (think drug acquisition), or when
it’s men who are being watched with a much more suspicious eye than
women, not only is no umbrage taken, but the profiling isn’t even
noticed.  It seems that the harsh realities of life are only on the
radar screen and cast as an unfair burden when they rain down on groups
that are in favor politically.

Moreover,
I can add that law enforcement in New Jersey once pointed out that
their profiles target not just minorities but whatever group the
science — and it is science (and common sense) — indicates.  For
instance, they associated whites with the methamphetamine trade because
those involved in it in NJ were white motorcycle gangs.

Lastly, C., I must point out a factual error.  You mentioned
targeting whites for white collar crime, but, according to the last
statistics I heard, blacks are four times more likely engage in white
collar crime than whites are.  I understand that this isn’t exactly
germane to the larger point you were trying to make; however, since
larger philosophical errors are often born of numerous smaller factual
ones, I felt I should correct the record.

The bottom line is that I want Truth acknowledged, common sense
exercised,  and emotionalism bayed.  I want all relevant factors
considered, regardless of misguided passions, disordered feelings,
well-funded agendas, or the political flavor of the day.  I want the
same standards applied to all characteristics and all groups, and, if a
group of which I’m a part is implicated in an area of crime (as men
have been), so be it.  Let the chips fall where they may.

God bless,

Selwyn Duke