Racial Profiling

[fumei]

Two questions.

What IS racial profiling?

Is it only racial profiling if it - whatever comes as a definition - is does by an organization? In other words, if someone, an individual, reacts, treats, interacts, with an identified group in a particular manner based on their beliefs regarding that group - is this racial profiling?

Hmmmm, I guess those could be considered together as:

Does racial profiling = racism?

Obviously, it CAN mean racism. But does it always mean racism?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[fumei]

Oooops. Sorry. This is really the wrong forum. It does not belong in Making an Impression....or does it? Should I repost it?

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[SantaMufasa]

The term, "racism", in its most fundamental sense, is "to form an opinion or make a decision about another, based exclusively or primarily upon the subject's racial characteristics or membership."

I have not heard that "racial profiling" occurs only under the auspices of an institution. But, regardless, whether an individual or an institution performs racial profiling, it is by the definition, above, nearly by necessity, a form of "racism".

IMHO, I believe that everyone, whether they are willing to admit it or not, makes certain initial judgments about others based upon physical appearance, including possibly another's race...Appearance is the most common method by which someone makes a First Impression to others, and makes a First Evaluation of others.

While I try not to make judgments based upon another's physical attributes, I must admit, that I have made such judgements and harbor some prejudices based upon physical attributes. For example, I do not consider myself sexist: I have nothing against women...I just wouldn't want my daughter to marry one.

By the same token, most Islamo-Fascist Terrorists who have perpetrated suicide bombings (on aircraft or otherwise) are male Arabs between the ages of 18 and 45. Until we discover an 80-year-old Caucasian female with a used explosives belt strapped to her charred body, I believe it is a safe presumption that security screeners can let her pass through the metal detectors with less scrutiny than an 18-to-45-year-old male Arab dressed in camo-fatigues with gun-or-knife-shaped bulges all over his body.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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[guitarzan]

I feel that the term "racial profiling", refers to an institution, or some authority, doing the profiling. For example, if a police officer pulls over cars he or she sees are driven by black males who are otherwise obeying the law, then that is racial profiling. If an individual walks the other way when spotting a group of black males walking towards them, this is not racial profiling IMO.

Santa's comments refer to the latter. And I agree, most of us do something similar. Spending a lot of time in Manhattan as a teen/young adult, you learn who to be wary of (and if you're smart, you learn it has nothing to do with race)

 

[fumei]

Dave, I agree with you. It is mostly ridiculous that everyone gets treated as a potential terrorist. Unfortunately there ARE potential terrorists who are not Arab looking. The shoe bomber for example.

Still, surely with our technology, and with personal agreement, frequent travellers can have their identities put in a system so they will not always be inconvenienced.

I am thinking about the almost perverse bending over backwards to appear to NOT be racial profiling. Here in canada, the police arrested 18 young men who were planning to use truck bombs in Toronto. They also had plans to capture our Prime Minister and behead him. Ok, OK, wackos, and regarding the P.M. his security is likely good enough that that part was dreamland. The truck bomb thing though was do-able. They had the fertilizer et al crap (a la Oklahoma City) to possibly do this. My point?

The police made a deliberate effort to NOT identify these guys as Muslim. In an almost Monty Pythonesque press conference, they stated that they were proud of the fact that they were not saying anything about them being Muslims. Uh...guys? Isn't that then saying that they ARE Muslims?

Weird. OK. The FACT is...they were all Muslims. The Muslims community insists that this fact is not relevant, and should not be reported. Excuse me????? It is the FACT that they are Muslims (albeit extremist radical ones) the key factor in them wanting to blow up truck bombs? How is this not relevant?

The guy who blew up abortion clinics (regardless on how you feel about that issue), is it not reasonable to mention that he was an extremist Christian? It is the reason why he did it. It was the main factor in why he did it. he did it because of his belief.

It seems to be that an action that is directly derived from a belief (whatever that may be - hatred of government (Oklahoma City); objection to abortion; insult to Islam) makes that belief relevant. Further, a group of persons who share that belief, and the violent actions that may lead from it, can be fairly identified as such.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[IknowMe]

But does it always mean racism?

No, If I advertise music by hispanic artists on a radio station that is brodcast in spanish, aren't I guilty of racial profiling?

I agree with Santa and Fumei's postitions on the issue.

Is it any different than the "Gender Profiling" of the Automobile Insurance Industry in America? (Young Male drivers cause the most expensive accidents statistically, there for as a group they pay higher premiums than any other age/gender group).

Why do we accept one and debate the other?

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[fumei]

No, If I advertise music by hispanic artists on a radio station that is brodcast in spanish, aren't I guilty of racial profiling?

It could be argued that the difference is one of intent.

Advertising has always used targets. This is reasonable, as why spend money talling people about your product(s) if there is no reasonable expectation they will buy them?

On the other hand, targeting persons because of attributes, for the purpose of investigating them, arresting them, spying on them...whatever...could be considered entirely negative. I mean from their perspective. Advertising, in theory, is targeting because (in theory) the product(s) will be good for them.

Here is another example. This was for real.

Fact #1: a street shooting. The cops arrive.
Fact #2: the victim is black.
Fact #3: a witness tells the cops the shooter was black, and left the scene in a blue Honda.
Fact #4: the cops flood the area and pull over any blue cars with a black driver.

In my opinion:

a) pulling over any blue car is reasonable. People are not perfect about car make/model. So blue cars seems a reasonable extrapolation.

b) a black driver makes it more likely it may be the person.

I will freely admit that B does tread into dangerous turf. The city black community howled "racial profiling" - as a number of persons of colour were pulled over simply because they were driving blue cars.

I don't know. It IS true that witnesses are the worst for being witnesses. Prosecuters do not like witnesses all that much, simply because people are often not very good observers. This is why forensic evidence really makes cases. DNA, fingerprints etc etc do not have opinions. So, yes, the witness could be mistaken, and it was NOT a black person who shot the victim and left in a blue car.

Nevertheless, if the police have - as best as they can - a piece of information, it seems foolish to not act on it.

If a city has 70 murders in a year, of which 69 are murders of (insert ethnicity), committed by (insert same ethnicity)..then is it racial profiling when a person is murdered (insert SAME ethnicity) that the police will focus on that ethnicity as the primary target for investigation?

True...statistics can indeed be manipulated. Yet, statistics DO have some validity.

Are there assumptions being made? Yes. Are some of these assumptions possibly wrong? Yes.

Is it racial profiling (= "wrong") to focus on young seemingly Muslim men getting on planes? Gosh I don't know. Part of me wants to say no it is not wrong, as statistically THAT is the group who are most likely to be possible dangers.

Is this fair to ALL young apparently Muslim men? No, it is not.

Is this unfairness ethically/legally reasonable?

"Reasonable" has specific meaning within law. I am not what the case law is on this. Anyone have more information on that?

There is no doubt that DWB (Driving While Black) is a real issue, and that police DO extrapolate beyond reason. Is there an ethical, or legal, difference between a single person in a car, and a single person boarding an aircraft?

I will toss out...perhaps there is.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[jebenson]

If an individual walks the other way when spotting a group of black males walking towards them, this is not racial profiling IMO.

It is called stereotyping, in this case based on skin color. We all do it every day, based on race, gender, religion (or lack thereof),profession, real/perceived income, etc. Stereotyping at its root is an information management system, which is in turn a survival mechanism.

Here's a link to a pretty good article on the subject:

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/mindwork/stor.html[/url]

Here's a (long) quote from the article:

For example, you see a tree. You observe its size, the limb configuration, leaf shape, the color and texture of its bark. You see another tree, and another, and another. They are all different. If you don't place them in a category but have to think about each tree as a distinct individual with no relationship to any other, your mind would soon become overloaded with all the sensory impressions. Thus you sort the trees into categories by characteristics they have in common. It might be leaf shape: maple, oak, pine, willow. It might be by limb configuration: spreading, symmetrical. Overall they fit into the category of "tree".

This categorizing I call pigeonholing. A pigeonhole contains all the information you have gathered about any particular item or subject. This information is not only the direct impressions, such as might be gathered by any animal, from a slug to a dog. It also includes any extrasomatic input that is applicable to the item or subject. Your mind sorts all the information that comes in and puts it in an appropriate pigeonhole. Every time you perceive the characteristics of something, you place those characteristics in a pigeonhole. When you identify something else that has the same, or what you perceive as the same characteristics, it goes in that pigeonhole. Therefore the pigeonhole "tree" contains the general features of all trees. Thus, the next time you see a tree it opens the appropriate pigeonhole. You can identify it as a tree without having to devote much, if any thought to it.

You create new pigeonholes whenever new information that you deem important comes in. For example, specific information about trees becomes important: evergreen or deciduous, maple, oak, willow, etc. When you then see a tree you observe limb configuration, leaf shape, etc., and the new pigeonhole "maple tree" is called up rather than the pigeonhole "tree". If, however, you do not consider the new information important, no new pigeonhole is created; the old pigeonhole will suffice.

Something special about a particular tree, such as it being the one you climbed as a child or hit with your car, will create a new pigeonhole.

The above example of a tree is very simple. Most stereotypes are not. They consist of a gestalt of impressions, many of which are stereotypes in and of themselves. Not only are there the sensory impressions but the emotions, collateral impressions, what other people have told you the impressions are and mean, all the extrasomatic input about the subject. All go into the pigeonhole.

For example, you meet many people, some new to you and some old, every day. Each is a combination of facial features, coloration, size, shape, behavior, temperament, vocal characteristics, moods, etc. It would be impossible to carry all you know about each individual in your mind. Thus they are pigeonholed according to characteristics. There are pigeonholes for coloration (black, white, yellow, red), sex (male, female), size (tall, short, fat, thin), age (child, teen-ager, young, middle-aged, elderly). Let us say you have the following pigeonholes based on combinations of characteristics: white male, black female, short Asian, thin Indian, short fat black balding male with a bad temper and a lisp; tall fat white female with short hair, loud voice and a tattoo; tall slender young female with long blond hair; short, skinny, short-haired male with horn-rimmed glasses and a pocket protector.

You label these pigeonholes with stereotypes. The label may be "black man," or "California girl," or "nerd."

Why then does stereotyping have such a negative connotation?

People generally perceive that stereotypes mean all things with similar characteristics, whether those characteristics are significant or not, are exactly alike. They are "lacking in originality or individuality." For example, all blacks or whites (women, Asians) think and act alike because they have the same skin color (they are women or Asians). When someone sneezes they must have a cold or allergy, and a sizzling sound in the kitchen means a steak is being cooked.

This is the basis of preconception and prejudice. When someone or something triggers a pigeonhole because of many like characteristics, you expect everything in the pigeonhole to be true.

What becomes important is not the stereotype, but the contents of the pigeonhole the stereotype triggers. Pigeonhole contents come from two basic sources, primary and secondary. The primary source is the information you personally put into pigeonholes, your direct impressions. Secondary is the information you get from other people, indirect impressions. A major source of secondary information is family and friends. What they teach you as the way to view people, places and things is the way you do. For example, if your father is a member of the Ku Klux Klan, then you will have a certain set of information about blacks, Jews, Catholics, etc. The pigeonhole may say that blacks are lazy, smelly, ignorant, oversexed, or that Jews are power-hungry, money-mad, devious, unscrupulous. Thus when you see a black person, or meet a stranger and someone tells you he or she is Jewish, the stereotype label triggers the pigeonhole and all that information is what you think of about that person. Family and friends produce many other pigeonholes of this type, particularly when you are young: best car to drive, political and religious affiliations, hair length and clothing styles, views about schooling, government, blonds, brunettes and redheads, gender, beer, smoking, bill paying, everything. Again, stereotypes trigger them all. Primary information is what you gather yourself. The information in each pigeonhole is not only what others have taught you is in them, but what you put there yourself. This information could come from what you read, what you see, what you experience. If a young, long-haired, scruffy looking man mugged you, then the pigeonhole of young, long-haired, scruffy looking men will include that they will mug you. This stereotype leads you to fear such a man when you see one.

Difficulties arise from the relative importance an individual places on certain characteristics in a pigeonhole. Each person assigns a rank to each piece of information placed in a pigeonhole. The rank comes from their own preconceptions, prejudices, education and/or experience. For example, to some people gender or race ranks higher than ability. Thus, seeing a woman apply for a job would trigger the "woman" pigeonhole and ability would be subordinate to gender. To others, ability is more important that gender or race. (Point of interest: when I said "seeing a woman apply for a job would trigger the "woman" pigeonhole and ability would be subordinate to gender," did you automatically assume that it meant she would not get the job, or she would? Either would be a "stereotypical" response according to your own pigeonholing of the information triggered by the sentence. Both possibilities are true.) The problem is that many times people perceive the information in pigeonholes triggered by stereotypes as negative. They believe the information includes such falsehoods as Jews are money-grubbing, Blacks are lazy, women are emotionally unstable, men are insensitive; Russia is dark and cold and miserable, Detroit is grimy and crime-ridden, Los Angeles is smoggy and glitzy and phony.

Stereotypes are neither positive or negative simply because they are stereotypes. Many stereotypes are negative or positive depending on the person holding them. For example, a stereotype that women are better child rearers is positive to many people. However, to a father denied custody of his child by a judge who holds that stereotype of women thinks it is negative.

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[CajunCenturion]

We're walking a fine line here, and I hope we can stay on the right side of it.

==> It is the FACT that they are Muslims (albeit extremist radical ones) the key factor in them wanting to blow up truck bombs?
Does being Muslim mean you want to blow up truck bombs?

==> is it not reasonable to mention that he was an extremist Christian? It is the reason why he did it.
Does being an extremist Christian mean you want to blow up abortion clinics?

This is where we get into trouble with language, and labelling, and general classifications, especially when we try by one affirmative statement to prove the converse.

Just because a statement is true does not mean the converse of that statement is true.

Just because everyone that has done A is a member of group B doesn't mean that every member of group B wishes to do A. Nor does it mean that to do A you have to be a member of group B.

We need to be careful in how we use language so that we don't give the wrong impression, or attempt to create or imply a cause-effect relationship that does not exist.

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[fumei]

Thank you CC, for you are absolutely correct. This IS a dangerous area, and we must be very careful here.

It is the FACT that they are Muslims (albeit extremist radical ones) the key factor in them wanting to blow up truck bombs?
Does being Muslim mean you want to blow up truck bombs?

No! It certainly does not. Does being a radical extremist Muslim mean you want to blow up trucks? No again, but it does mean the potential you may want to blow up trucks becomes higher.

is it not reasonable to mention that he was an extremist Christian? It is the reason why he did it.
Does being an extremist Christian mean you want to blow up abortion clinics.

No! It certainly does not. Does being a radical extremist Christian mean you want to blow up clinics? No again, but it does mean the potential you may want to blow up clinics becomes higher.

You are bang on in that true statements do not logically have true converses.

My point was regarding relevant information.

Does being Muslim - and further narrowed by being young men - mean a higher potential for wanting to blow up truck bombs? Sadly....yes. If 99% of potential/attempting bombers are young Muslim men (NOT - insert other faith here), then...again sadly...yes, the fact they are Muslim IS relevant. It is what is done with this information that is the issue.

In my opinion the primary use of this information should be used by the Muslim community itself. The radicalization process that directs young men to this is within the community. They are not getting encouraged in this direction from the state public school system.

In my opinion, this is not going to get any better until the community (which mostly just wants to do what everyone else wants to do - work, improve their lives, take care of their families etc etc) actively rejects those among them that advocate radical/extremist ideas.

Until that happens, the rest of us can only react to events. And frankly, I have my doubts that any kind of profiling will be effective. Of the 18 men arrested in Ontario on the truck bombing plot, two are non-Middle Eastern. They are converts. One in fact is Native American. So there you go. The racial part of the profiling is becoming moot.

The thread narrows to radical/extremist Islam. That makes it much harder - if not impossible - to profile in any sort of proactive way. How can you tell a radical/extremist Muslim from a Muslim who would never consider blowing anything up? It is likely that non-Muslims will never be able to do this. However, members of the Muslim community may be able to do this.

Their support and desire to help is vital.

Gerry
My paintings and sculpture

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Is it racial profiling (= "wrong") to focus on young seemingly Muslim men getting on planes? Gosh I don't know. Part of me wants to say no it is not wrong, as statistically THAT is the group who are most likely to be possible dangers.

->"seemingly Muslim men": First, a lot of Indian and Asian folks are going to be caught in the net because some screeners will think they look 'Middle-Eastern'. But forget about that.... The main problem has nothing to do with added inconvenience for some passengers.

In fact, forget any ethical or legal considerations. This is just plain bad policy because it would lead to a decrease in safety.

As Gerry has already pointed out, the "shoe bomber" was a white guy. I'm not sure about the current status of the investigation, but initial reports from the London bombing plot indicated that a woman traveling with a 6-month-old baby had liquid explosive concealed in a baby bottle.

Consider a scenario in which the FAA announces that they will be focusing heavily on 'Arab-looking' men in pre-flight screenings.

There are plenty of blonde-haired, blue-eyed extremists (even Muslim extremists) in the world. If it is announced that 'American-looking' and 'Western-European-looking' passengers will receive less scrutiny than.... well, I'll just say it, 'brown people', then the first thing any smart terrorist-leader will do is start sending 'white' terrorists, who will more easily pass through security, on plane-bombing missions.

Te reiterate, if we make if official policy to profile, we have told the enemy what they need to do in order to elude detection.

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[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[IknowMe]

As Cajun said "We're walking a fine line here", so I'd just like to say Cheers to anyone not intent on blowing me up whatever profile (racial or otherwise) you may choose to describe yourself.

But to stay on topic I believe the answer to fumie's question is no, racial profiling does not always involve racism. All the dictionary references for the word racism I've read carry a common idea of beleiving one race is better than another in some fashion. But racial or any other form of profiling can be used for purposes beneficial to the group profiled as well.







Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[columb]

Racial Profiling is any police or private security practice in which a person is treated as a suspect because of his or her race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. This occurs when police investigate, stop, frisk, search or use force against a person based on such characteristics instead of evidence of a person's criminal behavior. It often involves the stopping and searching of people of color for traffic violations, known as "DWB" or "driving while black or brown." Although normally associated with African Americans and Latinos, racial profiling and "DWB" have also become shorthand phrases for police stops of Asians, Native Americans, and, increasingly after 9/11, Arabs, Muslims and South Asians.

Yeah, I know, quoting the ACLU is liable to start a flame war but...
I remember a successful black british athlete - posibly Linford Christie, but it was some time ago and my memory is indistinct - being interviewed on Parkinson. He said that he'd given up driving smart cars because he was getting stopped all the time because the police couldn't believe that a young black man would be able to afford such a car. That's racial profiling.

Ceci n'est pas une signature
Columb Healy

 

[CajunCenturion]

Again, we're walking a fine line and I want everyone to remembers that the focus of this forum is language.



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[PaulTEG]

In a world where definitions change to suit ideals, we could be well aware of what a term used to mean, but nowadays, you also need to be aware of the current philosophy behind what was put forward, as well as the philosophy of the proponent.

case in point: Google define:terrorism

The generic definitions have now been redefined with the targets specifically noted as governments in addition to society. I'm not sure if the ordering of words in such a phrase is indicative of which is more important to the new brand of lexicographer, that can be left as an exercise for the reader.

Paul
------------------------------------
Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)

 

[KenCunningham]

Only 22 years too late we seem to be slipping into the Orwellian 1984 nightmare, where words can be made to mean whatever the powers that be wish them to mean (cf Animal Farm and Tweedle Dum (Bush?) and Tweedle Dee (Blair?) too).

'War is Peace' indeed.

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[columb]

Going back to basics, as far as I am concerned, racial profiling is about making judgements before the facts are known, or in other words pre-judging, which is where prejudice comes from. The fact that this 'pre-judging' is based on race makes it 'racial prejudice'.

This seems to me to be linguistics, not politics, and answers the original question.

Ceci n'est pas une signature
Columb Healy

 

[KenCunningham]

In this sense I don't think linguistics can be separated easily from the political climate in which they are used and in which thay are shaped and given 'meaning'. Thus 'Newspseak' in the aforementioned 1984.

As was said earlier, deep waters; from which I now withdraw.

All I ask of you
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[CajunCenturion]

==> In this sense I don't think linguistics can be separated easily from the political climate in which they are used and in which thay are shaped and given 'meaning'.

Absolutely. I think they call it 'spin'.

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[sleipnir214]

we seem to be slipping into the Orwellian 1984 nightmare

Oh, goody. Someone has invoked Orwell.

He said that he'd given up driving smart cars because he was getting stopped all the time because the police couldn't believe that a young black man would be able to afford such a car. That's racial profiling.

I don't think one can make that decision based on the information presented.

Let's say a person grows up in a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood. There is proven drug and gang activity in this neighborhood and what little wealth is seen is either rich kids coming in to buy drugs or drug dealers and gang leaders displaying wealth to make a success statements and defend turf.

Our person makes it big at a young age, and she, being young, wastes spends some of her new money on a flashy car which she then drives through her old neighborhood to show it off. After all, a Lexus doesn't get as much of a reaction in her new neighborhood as it does in her old, plus she feels good to be the living embodiment of the "hometown girl does good" story.

But she gets rousted by the cops while she's there and croaks "profiling" to the news media at the top of her voice. I think, though, it's very reasonable in the old, poor neighborhood for a police officer to associate displays of wealth to illegal activity -- after all, 98% of the rest of the time, it is.

Now if this same young woman gets stopped regularly by the cops in her new, rich neighborhood, there is a greater likelyhood of racial profiling. Especially if she is the only nouveau riche white girl living in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta.


I am slow to levy the accusation of racism or racial profiling. I want to know more of the facts so I can see a pattern.



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