A huge number of people believe that stereotyping is wrong.

I say it is a natural way in which our flawed electro-chemical computers process and categorize data. Stereotyping is a tool. And like all tools it can be used or abused. When its abused is when people get angry.

We can't categorize all people under the Heading PERSONS. Instead we group people together determined by how we perceive them. We organize these thoughts and data into a mental spreadsheet. And the people we meet are first put into one group, then as we learn more about them, they get shuffled into a another, more definative, group. There is nothing immoral or wrong about doing this. We do it all the time without thinking about it. It's the way our Operating System has been written.

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"Meesa love yousa long time."

Jar Jar Binks, Vietnam, 1967.

All the racial stereotypes that I've encountered stem from one group trying to reassure itself of its superiorty. They have no real basis in fact, beyond the most superficial.

The problem with stereotypes is that they are, by definition, inadequate to describe real people. They become dangerous when people forget that.

I agree with Cargile. Humans automatically sort things according to several examples...like, if you were attacked by a dog as a child, you automatically would think all dogs are dangerous.

Same thing pretty much works for race, although it isn't correct. If you lived in a somewhat slummy area of a city, like I did as a young child, then you might associate the minority groups with filth, crime, drugs, etc. In some ways, it's true since the minority groups are forced to live in slummy areas due to "Whites" controlling most everything in America. But this is far from correct, especially when it comes to people...

I mean, I lived in an apartment complex in Galveston from 1985-1989 or so, and saw some pretty bad stuff, like shootings and drug use right outside my front door, most comitted by "Black" people. And at the shopping centre the "Blacks" would be wearing scuzzy clothes and shuffling around in bathrobes and slippers. So, my young mind automatically associated "Blacks" with crime and poverty. This is waaay off base in most places, especially here in Northern Michigan where the few "Blacks" that live here are upper/mid middle-class families, and are a very small percentage of crime when compared to the NAs ("Indians") that live here. That's probably because of the infinitesimal number of "Blacks" here, but just because a person is a certain color or shape or size doesn't mean they are low-lifes.

*phew*

There we go.

quote:

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Racial Profiling

Richmond Times Dispatch, Sunday, June 20, 1999

This might come as a shock. But there are no data -- none whatsoever -- to show that David Cole, who claims to be a Georgetown University Law School professor, is not, in fact, a clever replica of the real professor Cole, who has been abducted by space aliens.

The issue arises because of remarks Cole recently made about racial profiling. Accusations that the police engage in profiling -- stopping motorists
on suspicion of criminal activity solely because they are black -- have mushroomed. Police departments deny there is a problem, and point to a lack of evidence that profiling occurs. According to a recent news report, Cole "agreed there is a lack of verifiable information." But he counters, "There is no data that shows a police department doesn't engage in racial profiling."

That is sheer sophistry. The lack of data showing Cole is not an alien replica does not make him an alien replica. The inability to prove Mary did not go to the library does not prove she did. Lack of evidence against racial profiling does not mean profiling takes place.

But assume it does, at least sometimes. The matter is still not settled. For the very civil-rights groups so harshly critical of profiling in law enforcement approve of profiling elsewhere. They have fought court battles and staged campus protests to demand it. They call it "diversity," but the essence of the diversity movement is an exercise in racial profiling. Opponents of color-blind college admissions and color-blind congressional redistricting argue that race should remain a factor in those areas because race is not
irrelevant but deeply relevant to how a person thinks and acts. Or as Jesse Jackson puts it, "To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist."

If that is true for college admissions, then why should it not be true for law enforcement -- especially when, as professor Cole himself admits, "the stereotype the police are relying on is not entirely irrational. It is more likely that a young black man will commit crimes than an elderly white woman. Minorities commit more crimes than whites." As the newsletter of the Statistical Assessment Service recently noted, "The unpleasant truth is that profiling can be statistically valid."

The injurious side of racial profiling occurs when a neurosurgeon coming home from the gym gets pulled over because a cop sees only a black man in
sweats driving a Lexus. Yet perhaps the neurosurgeon should direct his anger not at the cop so much as at the black males who, while only 6 percent of the population, account for 54 percent of arrests for murder and manslaughter -- most often, murder of fellow blacks. Whether police practice racial profiling, they should not be condemned as wicked racists when even Jesse Jackson (again) has said, "There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."

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I concur in part and dissent in part. In regards to David Cole from Georgetown University, he is engaging in the same logical fallacy liberals love to pin on anticommunists, ad ignorantiam (appeal to ignorance), arguing a claim is true because it has not been proven false. In regards to the comment on college diversity, as my American Civil Libertyies professor pointed out the second day of class, both sides in these debates have good reasons for their views. The legal cliche "Hard cases make for bad law" is the case here. If we decide to completely ignore race, then we lose the benefits different cultures and psychologies bring to humanity. If we decide to stay conscious of race and use the applied knowledge of it, we risk harmful stereotypes. The trick (which is not very "sexy", so it gets ignored by the press), is balance, which is an arbitrary decision criterium, but the least destructive of all options. What I fear (in regards to profiling, written about above, compared to college admissions) is that law enforcement involves more life-threatening instances where race-consciousness can have a destructive effect, as opposed to admissions, which can be both destructive and constructive. What do I think of the current state of profiling (if it exists to any degree)? If Clinton wants to stamp it out, he's going against human nature, which is a pattern-seeking organizing of empiracal phenomena. I think the best we can do is discourage its misuse again discriminated groups if there is truly a pattern of intentional badgering and targeting of non-majority races.

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"Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survivial or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed."

"...attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."