The term
racial profiling has become a
political trap in the 90's, every
politician must place himself against this dreadful practice or risk the
wrath of the
liberals. Unfortunately,
racial profiling, as defined by the likes of
Jesse Jackson, is a total
myth. The catchy line, "driving while black", is nothing more than a gross oversimplification of the issue. Even
conservative judicial officials have given up on exposing the
myth of
racial profiling, because it is too politically
risky and the
race baiters have the most of the
liberal media on its side.
What Dan Rather and his liberal buddies ignore is the fact that a vast majority of law enforcement professionals, even the black and Hispanic ones, are in favor of racial profiling. In the June 1999 issue of The New York Times Magazine (certainly not a conservative publication), Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Bernard Parks, the (black) chief of the LAPD on "racial profiling". Parks stated that playing the percentages is plain common sense for an understaffed police department. In 1997, blacks consisted of 13% of the American population, and yet committed more crimes than any other race from a per capita viewpoint, even in white collar crimes (35% of embezzlement cases in 1997 were committed by blacks). "Street crimes" were just as slanted, with blacks committing 38% of all robberies and an even higher percentage of drug-related crimes. A black is eight times more likely to commit homicide than a white person. Hispanic crime levels were rising at a rapid percentage rate especially on the East and West Coast.
Even Jesse Jackson, the ultimate race baiter himself, admitted that blacks were far more likely to commit crimes than whites. And I quote, "There is nothing more painful to 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." No white politician, conservative or liberal, could have gotten away with saying that.
The origins of the racial profiling witch-hunt can be traced to the New Jersey Turnpike in the early 1990's. New Jersey state troopers would keep a close eye on this stretch of road because it was the main conduit for shipping drugs into the Northeastern states. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as time passed) for the police, the drug dealers did not like white people, so they hired young blacks and Hispanics to drive their drugs, in large Japanese SUV's, up the East Coast. This valuable tidbit of knowledge resulted in New Jersey police seizing record amounts of heroin and cocaine; but it also angered the few blacks who didn't have bags of white powder in the back of their cars. The same analogy can be drawn for the West Coast, the SDPD and LAPD was grabbing large shipments of drugs as black and Hispanic criminals were driving up the coast.
In April 1998, two NJ state troopers, James Kenna and John Hogan, pulled over a van for speeding. As they approached the vehicle the driver slammed into reverse and attempted to crush the policemen; causing the troopers to fire 11 shots from their handguns, wounding 3 of the 4 occupants. All were black or Hispanic. And the racial profiling shitstorm was born. The police have been engaged in racial profiling for years, it wasn't until then was there large scale media coverage.
All police departments agree that "pure" racial profiling is an outrage, any officer proved to be pulling over minority drivers purely because of race would be punished immediately. But that has been shown to be quite rare, especially when most police departments have high levels of minority employment. What liberals really wanted was to slander the police and promote minority victimology. They have convinced the public that minorities are like prey on American roads.
The use of racial statistics to judge suspicion is perfectly legal. It is a well-known fact that a police officer is far more likely to stop a young black man based on suspicion than a young white man. That is because that black man is far more likely to commit a crime than the white man! It isn't race alone, age and sex are also important factors. The police are more likely to stop on suspicion a 20-year-old white man than a 50-year-old black man or a 20-year-old black woman.
Unfortunately for law enforcement professionals everywhere, liberals are targeting the use of crime statistics as a legal basis to pursue suspicious persons, because the statistics show that blacks and Hispanics are far more likely to commit crimes and that does not please them. When an astonishing 75% of drugs seized on East Coast highways were being transported by groups of black or Hispanic males, it is hard for the police to resist pulling over every car containing suspicious young black/Hispanic men.
It would be impossible to outlaw their definition of racial profiling as long as blacks and Hispanics commit more crimes than whites. Doing so would require police departments to install "white pullover quotas" to satisfy the missing percentage of whites being investigated, causing crime to skyrocket while officers are busy filling out paperwork explaining each minority arrest. In Philadelphia, officers are now required to fill out a form on every citizen contact, leading to massive inefficiency in police work.
I guess some people believe that racial quotas are justified in academic institutions but not in police work. Racial profiling exists, it is justified, and people who associate racial profiling with racism obviously have no idea what it is like to be a police officer working the streets.