The truth about racial profiling!

[Peikko 1,575]

Actually its funny that you mention this as its one of my pet peeves. Yes, gender bias is a big deal. How many times do you hear woman friends describe how they "got out of that ticket by flirting."

For some reason it doesn't work the other way around.......

This is a silly argument. There is a difference between profiling and following up a lead based on a description of the perpetrator.

As to whether women flirt to get out of traffic tickets, I believe you will find for the most part that is an urban myth - added to which, there are now women in the police force.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

This is a silly argument. There is a difference between profiling and following up a lead based on a description of the perpetrator.

As to whether women flirt to get out of traffic tickets, I believe you will find for the most part that is an urban myth - added to which, there are now women in the police force.

You may be right lol. In fact white women may get more tickets per stop than black males!

http://www.amren.com/news/news04/04/06/whitewomentickets.html

[KaiserD 12]

Men tend to Murder, traffic drugs, commit crimes of violence much much more than women and thankfully police use this knowledge to solve more crimes than if they pretended this truth... were not so.

Is it ok to Profile men?

There is this assumption but I believe that it's changing - violent crime especially with young people is up by girls, I've read/seen a few articles by the BBC on this and for some reason people are surprised? People are people, all capable of doing nasty things to each other. I hope that sentences given to both genders for violent crime are the same, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't.

[GabiandVi 34]

If racial profiling by police solving and preventing crimes led to no more than embarrassment and inconvenience, I wouldn't have a problem with it. And my husband, who is on the dark, dark, dark end of brown, agrees. Unfortunately, it leads to situations where the lives of innocent people are ruined. It is also props up a system of prejudice. I think the problem is when it becomes systematic. We all do a sort of profiling, racial or otherwise, and in many cases it is to our benefit.

There are all other sorts of profiling besides racial, and I've experienced being profiled myself. I'm not referring to police profiling me, though my brother when he was about 25 in the late 80s, early 90s, was driving a BMW west down I10 toward Houston. He fit the profile (he's white, very, very white) of a drug trafficker and the police pulled him over and asked if they could search his car. Stupidly, he said yes, and fortunately, they found nothing though it was a used car. But my point is that we hear only about racial profiling done by police, and we get on our very high horses, but I'll bet there is NO ONE on here who is not guilty of profiling.

And profiling in many cases is just being responsible. For example, if you are offering screening for high blood pressure, it makes sense to target as many Black males as you can. And for goodness sake, do we really have to pull 7 year olds aside for pat downs at airports? When this happened to my nephew, he thought it was really cool, but don't you think it was a waste of time and money just so someone didn't get their feelings hurt?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

In a lot of cases, it's inevitable. If you have a set of unsolved burglaries in a city and the suspects are described as being a specific demographic, why would you look outside that demographic? If there is any discrepancies among the victims description, then you can make the case that they can't narrow it down to certain groups, but much is the the case where the descriptions are consistent.

That's not really profiling though - it's working on the basis that you have specific information (i.e. evidence about the perpetrator) about a specific crime. That is common sense.

Profiling is having a government agency adopt a one-size-fits-all approach that assumes in the absences of any specific information that racial minorities should be subject to additional scrutiny on the basis of preconceived ideas that they are more likely to be involved in crime.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

But why did you say "Ethnic group", men are also heavily profiled for the very same reasons?

Men tend to Murder, traffic drugs, commit crimes of violence much much more than women and thankfully police use this knowledge to solve more crimes than if they pretended this truth... were not so.

Is it ok to Profile men?

Dannologic alert!

How exactly would someone profile "men"? Do you think cops work on eyewitness accounts as vague as:

Neither young nor old

Neither white nor dark

Average Height

Not skinny but not fat either

Male - dingdingding! we have a winner! We must go out and either stop or arrest all men! It's totally useless!

Profiling involves institutions (and people working within them) to make wholesale assumptions about identifiable segments of society - "black man", narrows the field rather more significantly than just "man"; which is fine when you have specific evidence for specific incidents. The problem is when you work on an ad-hoc basis (i.e. not in regard to any specific incident) but as a matter of course that if a crime has been committed we should first ask a black man - you are potentially infringing the rights of large numbers of people.

[KaiserD 12]

but I'll bet there is NO ONE on here who is not guilty of profiling.

Sure if it makes you feel better

I hate people making assumptions about me, even small things. Wait, I think I just profiled my son, there's a bad smell in here and I'm gonna go ahead and assume he's the cause of it. Babies and toddlers are the largest demographic of bad smells.

He just took off, GUILTY!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I don't think it really matters if individuals profile people in their own heads - I'm sure many people are guilty of this. The issue is when their attitudes become widely held and form the basis of institutional policy. Institutional Racism is the term that is used.

[KaiserD 12]

I don't think it really matters if individuals profile people in their own heads - I'm sure many people are guilty of this. The issue is when their attitudes become widely held and form the basis of institutional policy. Institutional Racism is the term that is used.

Really? It just doesn't make sense to have associations as women = innocent child = hoodlum e.t.c. In any given circumstance you may not have a complete picture of a person and who they are but your senses are going to use more than just age/gender/race. I would assume what's more common is old lady, dressed ok, sitting humbly in a corner = kind + vulnerable. You use a little more sense available to make a decision, and it can still be wrong. She could be a crazy serial killer or habitual thief

This is all judging by appearances of course, but humans as creatures still have basic instincts in identifying a threat.

[GabiandVi 34]

I don't think it really matters if individuals profile people in their own heads - I'm sure many people are guilty of this. The issue is when their attitudes become widely held and form the basis of institutional policy. Institutional Racism is the term that is used.

Right, but there are more "acceptable", more politically correct forms of profiling that may not be institutional but do result in certain people loosing out. In my experience some of the people who are the most vocal against things like racial profiling, are very quick to judge and VERY intolerant of people who may seem to come from a different perspective. It's a form of hypocracy I've experienced first hand and it has impacted my life negatively.

Examples of the sorts of "profiling" I'm referrring to: Southerners are stupid, ignorant, or racists. Fat people are lazy and have no self control. Openly religious people are close-minded and intolerant. People living in trailor parks are ignorant and dishonest. Americans are stupid and arrogant.

I was almost denied a job because the person who was hiring saw from my work experience and education that I was from the South. He openly admitted this. The school was desperate, so they finally gave me an interview. He marvelled at my speech and apparent intelligence. He had already commented on my ability to write, and I gathered from one or two comments he made over the next few years that he had assumed I had not actually written what he saw in my application.

Throughout the years I worked at that school, I was told on numerous occasions by people from New England that the South "gave them the creeps." "Southern women are two-faced around men." "Southerners are racist." The last from someone whose daughter said that the one time she got in trouble at her school she had to stay in detention with the Black kid. THERE WAS ONLY ONE BLACK KID IN HER SCHOOL!!!!! But her mother thought Southerners were racist. Don't get me wrong. I liked these people and we remain friends, but if I faced that, imagine how wide-spread it is and how many people don't get beyond the geography of a person's birth. Yet we never hear anyone decry this. It is not "institutionalized."

That's one small instance and those are just a handful of the comments I've heard in my life. I could list some of the comments I've heard about

Americans, religious people, and on and on and on. I've read many on this forum by people who have been appalled at this sort of topic - racial profiling.

My point is that, while we should not tolerate institutionalized racism, we must all be aware of our own weaknesses, myself included. The man in the mirror and all that.

And I contend that ALL people are guilty of this on some level. Those that think they aren't are the worst offenders.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Right, but there are more "acceptable", more politically correct forms of profiling that may not be institutional but do result in certain people loosing out. In my experience some of the people who are the most vocal against things like racial profiling, are very quick to judge and VERY intolerant of people who may seem to come from a different perspective. It's a form of hypocracy I've experienced first hand and it has impacted my life negatively.

Examples of the sorts of "profiling" I'm referrring to: Southerners are stupid, ignorant, or racists. Fat people are lazy and have no self control. Openly religious people are close-minded and intolerant. People living in trailor parks are ignorant and dishonest. Americans are stupid and arrogant.

I was almost denied a job because the person who was hiring saw from my work experience and education that I was from the South. He openly admitted this. The school was desperate, so they finally gave me an interview. He marvelled at my speech and apparent intelligence. He had already commented on my ability to write, and I gathered from one or two comments he made over the next few years that he had assumed I had not actually written what he saw in my application.

Throughout the years I worked at that school, I was told on numerous occasions by people from New England that the South "gave them the creeps." "Southern women are two-faced around men." "Southerners are racist." The last from someone whose daughter said that the one time she got in trouble at her school she had to stay in detention with the Black kid. THERE WAS ONLY ONE BLACK KID IN HER SCHOOL!!!!! But her mother thought Southerners were racist. Don't get me wrong. I liked these people and we remain friends, but if I faced that, imagine how wide-spread it is and how many people don't get beyond the geography of a person's birth. Yet we never hear anyone decry this. It is not "institutionalized."

That's one small instance and those are just a handful of the comments I've heard in my life. I could list some of the comments I've heard about

Americans, religious people, and on and on and on. I've read many on this forum by people who have been appalled at this sort of topic - racial profiling.

My point is that, while we should not tolerate institutionalized racism, we must all be aware of our own weaknesses, myself included. The man in the mirror and all that.

And I contend that ALL people are guilty of this on some level. Those that think they aren't are the worst offenders.

I like this post. It's honest.

In regards to the only one black student in the class, yeah... tell me about it. When I lived up north this was the norm in many areas. I've never seen so few black people lol and yet so much animosity at the same time. The south is much more accepting than the north these days because we are far more integrated than they will ever be.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

It would depend on what they were doing and perhaps even what they were wearing. If they were all wearing hoodies that covered their faces, with slouched shoulders e.t.c it doesn't make them guilty by association but kids/teens of anti social behaviour are the ones that act that way and they are not separately identifiable. As a mother I have to say, I would think twice about going near them if my toddler was with me.

If they were happy and relaxed, playing on bikes or whatever I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid them though, if I made eye contact I would say hi.

Whitest thing for miles. I've stopped getting funny looks at Kroger now so I guess people are used to seeing my face there.

Can you give me an example?

The pre-conceived notion that you look at color before anything else. Makes everyone guilty of the same thoughts as yours.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

The 'tiger' analysis is particularly useless. All tigers are potentially likely to behave aggressively, but are we saying that all black people are potentially likely to be thugs?

Not unless youve been taught that they are dangerous. Would a 2 year old try to run from a tiger? No they would try to play with it.

[KaiserD 12]

The pre-conceived notion that you look at color before anything else. Makes everyone guilty of the same thoughts as yours.

LOL We see colour at the same time as height because it's the first thing we see, is the surface area of the human in our focus. That does not mean that you have an instantanious mental reaction of "black man = danger!". If this were true, I would be taking drugs for anxiety and never leave my house.

Not unless youve been taught that they are dangerous. Would a 2 year old try to run from a tiger? No they would try to play with it.

A 2 year old does not have a fully established fight or flight, toddlers systems rely on their mothers to come save them/warn them of danger. So do baby tigers I'm sure.

[evli1966 88]

Right, but there are more "acceptable", more politically correct forms of profiling that may not be institutional but do result in certain people loosing out. In my experience some of the people who are the most vocal against things like racial profiling, are very quick to judge and VERY intolerant of people who may seem to come from a different perspective. It's a form of hypocracy I've experienced first hand and it has impacted my life negatively.

Examples of the sorts of "profiling" I'm referrring to: Southerners are stupid, ignorant, or racists. Fat people are lazy and have no self control. Openly religious people are close-minded and intolerant. People living in trailor parks are ignorant and dishonest. Americans are stupid and arrogant.

I was almost denied a job because the person who was hiring saw from my work experience and education that I was from the South. He openly admitted this. The school was desperate, so they finally gave me an interview. He marvelled at my speech and apparent intelligence. He had already commented on my ability to write, and I gathered from one or two comments he made over the next few years that he had assumed I had not actually written what he saw in my application.

Throughout the years I worked at that school, I was told on numerous occasions by people from New England that the South "gave them the creeps." "Southern women are two-faced around men." "Southerners are racist." The last from someone whose daughter said that the one time she got in trouble at her school she had to stay in detention with the Black kid. THERE WAS ONLY ONE BLACK KID IN HER SCHOOL!!!!! But her mother thought Southerners were racist. Don't get me wrong. I liked these people and we remain friends, but if I faced that, imagine how wide-spread it is and how many people don't get beyond the geography of a person's birth. Yet we never hear anyone decry this. It is not "institutionalized."

That's one small instance and those are just a handful of the comments I've heard in my life. I could list some of the comments I've heard about

Americans, religious people, and on and on and on. I've read many on this forum by people who have been appalled at this sort of topic - racial profiling.

My point is that, while we should not tolerate institutionalized racism, we must all be aware of our own weaknesses, myself included. The man in the mirror and all that.

And I contend that ALL people are guilty of this on some level. Those that think they aren't are the worst offenders.

I can honestly say that there are many times I look and judge people by their dress, appereance, etc.

I will go further to say I often second guess my own comments because I feel very sensitive around people if I say soemthing to the effect "what was that black guys name?" ..why didn't I say "what was that guys name?". No offense was meant in the statement and none is typically taken but I feel I should have said it in the latter form.

I beleiev everyone has that problem in some form.