Headline: PROFILING
GIVES US A FIRST IMPRESSION, BUT NOT A LASTING ONE
Reporter: By Greg Freeman
Publication: ST.
LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Thur., Nov. 1, 2001
Section:
METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT
I'm guilty of racial profiling.
If you're honest
with yourself, you're guilty of it, too. In fact, it's just about impossible
for anyone to look at someone else without doing it to some extent. I'm suspicious
of those who say that they don't. They're like the people who say they never
notice a person's color. Huh? Could you have a conversation with someone for
10 minutes, walk away and never realize that the person you were talking with
was black or white? That's doubtful.
All
of us profile to an extent. If I see a white man downtown in a suit and tie
carrying a briefcase, my first impression is that he's a businessman. If I see
a white man with his head shaved wearing a leather jacket, blue jeans and black
combat boots, my first impression is that he's a skinhead.
I
could be way off base with both assumptions. The first guy could be a dealer
with drugs in his briefcase, for all I know. The second guy could simply be
a rocker.
Of course, it really doesn't matter what my first impression is of these folks. What matters is what I do with that information.
Racial profiling
is in the news again because of the attacks Sept. 11 on the United States. Not
only are Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent being profiled, some wags
-- like syndicated columnist Mona Charen -- are even suggesting that Arabs in
this country be forced to leave, and that citizens of Middle Eastern origin
be given "some scrutiny."
That
is going way too far.
Profiling offers a simple, first impression under which assumptions are made. But you can't make wise decisions based on assumptions.
A month ago, I
wrote about a Sikh woman -- an American citizen -- who went to the Creve Coeur
post office to mail a letter. The woman wore a head covering, as is traditional
in the Sikh religion. When she got out of her car, a woman who was standing
nearby started screaming at her. The Sikh woman was so frightened she got back
in her car and drove away.
First,
Sikhs are not Muslims. Theirs is an entirely different religion. But even if
she had been a Muslim, what happened made no real sense. The Sikh woman was
as American as the woman screaming at her. And the fact that Osama bin Laden
was Muslim should have made no difference. Had Timothy McVeigh been Catholic,
would that have given anyone the right to scream at any and all Catholics?
For most African-Americans,
being profiled is a way of life. About a month ago, an African-American friend
who's a businessman recounted his days growing up in St. Louis in the 1960s.
He and a few friends would walk to school and home each day. Every few days
or so, as they were walking, the police would detain them. The officers would
ask them where they were going and, on occasion, search them. They were good
kids and never had anything illegal on them, and the cops would then let them
go. "We thought that was normal, " he said. "We just assumed
it happened to all kids."
Since
Sept. 11, more than one African-American has expressed some relief at not being
in the suspect group, at least for now.
But just as simple
profiling by police is a lazy form of police work, being rude or violent toward
people who outwardly appear to be Islamic or Middle Eastern can be a lazy way
of sizing up people, especially if we make decisions entirely because of someone's
appearance.
Our
skin color isn't a matter of our choosing.
And more often than not, we tend to choose the religion
that our parents chose for themselves. Neither is a predictor of how we think
or how we behave.
We can't help
but profile people. We notice things about people, and some features stand out
more than others to us.
The
key is teaching ourselves to take a closer look, a deeper look. What we find
beneath the surface is often quite different from what we assumed at first blush.
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