Racial Profiling 1
Driving along, I saw a car pulled over by a state trooper. I bet myself $20 that the vehicle's occupant was black. Did I win? Damn right. "Racial profiling," as it has come to be known, involves police officers pulling over vehicles driven by minorities. The logic is seemingly flawless: Minorities who violate motor vehicle laws tend to violate other laws. Stop them for speeding; arrest them for more serious charges. Minorities are more likely to drive: without insurance or registration and on the revoked or suspended list. Making that assertion is no more "racist" than saying pedophilia and serial killing are the hobbies of whites. Certain illegal activities are more prevalent among certain races and ethnicities, and only the naïve and governors wanting to run for the Senate would beg to differ. A cop's main function is to uphold the law. Why go after the white girl in the Geo Tracker – whose only offense is having one of those insipid "Mean People Suck" bumper stickers – when you can stop the minority in the beat-up Honda Accord – who might be driving on the revoked list? You get two or more offenses for the price of one. You can take a habitual offender off of the streets for a while. Job done; case closed. But the icing on the cake is drug trafficking. Governor Whitman fired State Police Col. Carl Williams Jr. on Sunday, after a published report quoted the embattled superintendent linking black people and other minorities to drug trafficking. Williams had the unmitigated gall to concede certain races and groups had a monopoly on drug manufacturing: "Today with this drug problem, the drug problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that's involved with that," he is quoted as saying. "They aren't going to ask some Irishman to be a part of their [gang] because they don't trust them. "If you're looking at the methamphetamine market, that seems to be controlled by the motorcycle gangs, which are basically predominantly white," said Williams, a 35-year state police veteran whose first assignment-included writing speeding tickets on the turnpike. "If you're looking at heroin and stuff like that, your involvement there is more or less Jamaicans. None of this is revolutionary. Throughout the country's history, specific groups have been linked to sordid behavior. With few exceptions, though, those stereotypes are based on truths.
Racial Profiling 2 While not every Italian is in the Mob, the Mob has historically and popularly been run by Italians. While not every Irishman spends his weekends imbibing Guinness, the earliest and most celebrated drunken brawlers were Irish. While not every Korean owns a deli, enough of them do to make it a running joke on "Def Comedy Jam." So, not every white biker traffics in speed, but many of those who do belong to a motorcycle gang. And not every Jamaican sells heroin to white girls in the suburb looking to lose a little weight, but many of those who do come from Jamaica. 1 It is bordering on the insane for a man who has been a police officer for 35 years to be fired over speaking a truth, albeit a generalized truth. Everyone thinks in generalities. We have an experience. We base our future opinions and actions on that experience. Black leaders began calling on Williams to resign after the state police released statistics three weeks ago showing that 57 percent of the people arrested on the turnpike in a twomonth period in 1997 were African-American. By one estimate, only about 13 percent of drivers on the turnpike are African-American. Overall, 75 percent of those arrested were minorities, including either black or light-skinned Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. State police officials had said the figure is not surprising, because most arrests on the highway are for violations involving drugs or weapons, and statewide, more than 60 percent of those arrested for such crimes are African-American. When cops notice that pattern, it becomes difficult not to apply it to traffic stops. Is it fair? No. Is it fair for me to want to bash in the heads of all children simply because I have had more We stereotype people everyday. With all of the information we process, it is easier to think in generalities. Cops are no different, and one would think they are more attuned to the nature of motor vehicle stops than activists trying to stir up trouble. And to all of those white people supporting the activists: shut the fuck up. This will set a dangerous precedent. Affirmative action and quotas in the workplace are being phased out, but forcing cops to catalog the races of stopped drivers will bring it to the roads. Is that what you want?
Racial Profiling 3 You should consider yourself blessed that you have a lower chance of being pulled over for a traffic violation. If it saves us an insurance surcharge, we should have no problem with police targeting minorities. Better them than us.