-Caveat Lector-
Thank you, M.A., for the Walter Williams article.
I find it interesting that Williams does NOT ask WHY D.C. is filled with
"black thugs." Instead, (as usual), he frames the issue in terms of
"character" and "who should we blame"?
The blame-game is a tricky affair. First off, we have to ask ourselves
exactly why it is that we live in a country in which crime is an
acceptable way of life for so many citizens?
We are the richest country
on earth...certainly, the most technologically sophisticated. Yet, we are
also a violent and unsafe society. Why is that?
Is it really just a matter of "character"? The problem I have with
Williams's analysis is that he's asking the wrong questions and ignoring
the complexity of the matter.
Of course, racial profiling is a problem. Just as class profiling is...
The phenomenon goes to the heart of American political/social/cultural
realities. In order to understand the WHY of it, Williams can add nothing
substantive to our understanding of the issue.
On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, M.A. Johnson wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Das GOAT wrote:
> "Thousands of local police nationwide were trained in the use
> of 'racial profiling' by the DEA, as part of its 'Operation
> Pipeline,' a federally funded anti-drug program."
>
> Racial profiling
> by Walter Williams
>
> NEW JERSEY GOV. CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN fired Col. Carl
> Williams, her state police superintendent, after he told
> reporters that minority groups were more likely to be
> involved in drug trafficking. Williams was already under
> fire by black ministers and civil-rights groups accusing
> the State Police of racial profiling, a practice of
> targeting minority drivers for traffic stops and searches
> in the war against drug trafficking.
>
> Whitman said she fired Williams because his comments "are
> inconsistent with our efforts to enhance public confidence
> in the State Police." Let's look at racial profiling.
>
> If God were a state trooper, He wouldn't be involved
> with the imperfection and indignity of racial profiling
> --- not because He's good but because He knows all.
> God would know who is a drug trafficker and who's
> not.
>
> Mere mortals like us don't know everything. Unlike God,
> we face a world of costly and incomplete information, and
> that means we have to do a lot of guessing and playing
> hunches.
>
> Part of that strategy requires the use of indicators that have
> varying degrees of reliability. Physical characteristics,
> including race, are among those indicators that can tell us
> things. Thus, we can benefit from learning to employ
> cheap-to-observe characteristics as proxies for
> more-costly-to-observe characteristics. Race is a
> cheap-to-observe characteristic that, while imperfect,
> is nonetheless sometimes useful.
>
> I've hailed taxis in downtown Washington, D.C., at
> night, only to watch the driver pass me up and pick
> up a white passenger down the street. As often as
> not, the driver was black. Was the driver a racist? Or
> was he using my skin color as a proxy for an
> undesirable destination such as a high-crime
> neighborhood or as a proxy for the probability of
> being robbed?
>
> He was racially profiling me, but he was wrong in my
> case.
>
> It is never pleasant to be a victim of racial profiling,
> but whom should I blame: the taxi driver who's not
> God and is simply doing what he can to protect
> himself? Or should I blame black thugs who prey on
> taxi drivers, making them leery about picking up black
> customers at night?
>
> My physician practices racial profiling. Even though
> my PSA is 2.3, he is very aggressive about the
> slightest change. He's also aggressive about treating
> my mildly elevated blood pressure. He doesn't know
> anything certain about my individual risk of prostate
> cancer and hypertension-related diseases. Not being
> God, he uses the medical evidence about blacks in
> general to make guesses about me. Should I take a
> cue from Whitman and fire him for making
> assumptions about me based upon my race?
>
> What about racial assumptions the New Jersey State
> Police may make?
>
> According to the 1997 FBI Uniform Crime Report, 63
> percent of the 65,624 drug arrests were minorities
> (50 percent blacks and 13 percent Hispanics).
>
> Since blacks are only 13 percent of the total
> population, it means law enforcement officials can
> assign a higher probability that a drug trafficker is a
> black more so than other racial groups. In terms of
> arresting drug traffickers, doing disproportionate
> traffic stops on blacks will have a higher payoff than
> traffic stops on say Japanese, Orthodox Jews or
> 75-year-olds.
>
> Statistics about the grossly disproportionate number
> of blacks involved in drug trafficking is no comfort to
> the law-abiding black who is stopped and searched.
> It's humiliating and demeaning, not to mention
> inconvenient. But with whom should we be angry:
> police officers or those who've made black
> synonymous with crime?
>
> Of course, an alternative is not to stop cars at all.
>
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DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
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