-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.
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.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
