Profiling vs. Racism

March 27, 2012 By 29 Comments

Right now, there isn’t enough known about the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a black, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old part-Hispanic, during his neighborhood watch tour in an Orlando, Fla., suburb. If evidence emerges that Zimmerman’s actions were not justified, he should be prosecuted and punished; however, there’s a larger issue that few people understand or have the courage to acknowledge, namely that black and young has become synonymous with crime and, hence, suspicion. To make that connection does not make one a racist. Let’s look at it.

Twelve years ago, a black Washington, D.C., commissioner warned cabbies, most of whom were black, against picking up dangerous-looking passengers. She described “dangerous-looking” as a “young black guy … with shirttail hanging down longer than his coat, baggy pants, unlaced tennis shoes.” She also warned cabbies to stay away from low-income black neighborhoods. Did that make the D.C. commissioner a racist?

In some cities, such as St. Louis, black pizza deliverers have complained about having to deliver pizzas to certain black neighborhoods, including neighborhoods in which they live. Are they racists? The Rev. Jesse Jackson once remarked, “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 — (and) then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Does that make the reverend a racist?

The former Charleston, S.C., black chief of police, Reuben Greenberg, said the problem facing black America is not racial profiling. He said, “The greatest problem in the black community is the tolerance for high levels of criminality.” Former Los Angeles black police Chief Bernard Parks, defending racial profiling, said: “It’s not the fault of the police when they stop minority males or put them in jail. It’s the fault of the minority males for committing the crime.

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  • UCSPanther

    I think we will have another do-over of the Rodney King riots if this recent event doesn't go the way the race hustlers want.

    • Schlomotion

      Yes. Too bad there was no video footage like there was when the "race hustlers" caught the police beating Rodney King to death. Then we could all be told told that we viewed the video incorrectly.

      • UCSPanther

        You messed up your facts again. Rodney King is still alive, and he has since continued his old ways of getting into trouble with the law.

        • Schlomotion

          He was being beaten to death. He was not beaten to death. Why are these kind of statements difficult for you to process?

          • http://LechDharma.blogspot.com Lech Dharma

            In the words of His Nibs, the LAPD "acted stupidly"…but understandably The adrenaline was pumping through them after the long high speed chase, and after realizing who it was that they were following—based on his prior criminal record, and the fact that he was driving drunk and under suspension. Would the LAPD officers involved in the beating have done the same thing if Rodney King would have been white? Quite possibly. At any rate, the "race hustlers" in America exploited the situation when they were found "not guilty", and promoted rioting and looting in cities all over the country.

          • johnnywoods

            What part of "He is still alive" are you having trouble with ?

          • Don Kosloff

            Rodney King was being beaten until he was no longer a deadly threat to the police officers. The race hustlers showed only the part of the video that would support ignorant conclusions such as yours. The jury saw the entire video, which is why the acquitted the police officers who were on trial for defending themselves.

      • Chris C

        Rodney King is still alive. He did a fundraising boxing match with police a while back.

  • UCSPanther

    And when all hell breaks lose, those leftists are going to be running to us "Gun-totin' rednecks" to save their hides.

    • Steen

      Let them die mate

  • copper

    Walter Williams cuts right through the emotionalism, rhetoric and screaming and in a calm measured voice restores the sanity of REASON.

    • johnnywoods

      Dr. Williams tends to handle things reasonably as he has done here.

  • jacob

    Knowing al little as I know human nature the way it is from my days as a cop, it seems to me the
    President's putting his two cents, two quarters or even two trillion dollars into the TRYVON issue
    is sending the wrong message to some of the 98% African-Americans who helped him into the
    White House….

    This is the second time he jumps off the deep end on issues concening black people and it
    doesn't require a PhD to realize that some of these people may feel they can be somehow
    above the Law because the President wiil come out to excuse and defend their actions…

    There has been a clamor of this issue having "nationwide importance" but I haven't seen even
    a hint of any "importance" the recent violence of blacks on whites might have even from the
    White House or from our abjectly servile leftist media on the issue…

    Knowing how he fared onn the Cambridge, Mass. incident with its police, I don't believe he needs
    another such incident unless, as it seems already, he couldn't care less what people think of him…

  • jacob

    Reading the authorized and relevant opinions of Police Chiefs only confirms how sick and tired makes
    me all this ranting and raving about "Racial Profiling" ….

    If the police stops me for any reason (going one mile above the speed limit, not staying until doomsday
    at a stop sign, etc,.) and asks for my divers license, vehicle registration and even insurance proof, i will
    produce it immediately and agree even to have my vehicle searched all the way to a drug (or booze)
    sniffing dog or undergo a breathing test, etc,.

    Then how come that when the police stops a car driven or occupied by young African-Americans,
    there is no driver's license or it has been suspended ?
    There is no vehicle registration, no insurance of course or a fake one (as it has happened to me in an
    accident) and a search of the vehicle nets at least booze, when not drugs or even weapons….

    So this must be excused also because it constitutes proof of "RACIAL PROFILING"…?????
    GIVE ME A BREAAAAAAAAKKKKKK! ! ! !

  • oldtimer

    Read yesterday' article in the Miami Herald about what happened at Trayvon's school and the condition of the security guard.

    • aspacia

      Do you have a link?

  • jacob

    With all due respect, I do defend Mr. JUAN WILLIAMS on his fear of Muslims and I don't agree with his
    firing by PBS, knowing what are the political leanings of PBS which I would defund in the blink of an
    eye if they refuse to be totally and absolutely IMPARTIAL, the way it should be, supported as it is by
    public funding….

    And I fully and absolutely support him because it wasn't any other people but Muslims the authors
    of the 9/11 horror and all the atrocities too many to even try to enumerate and, if our supergeniuses
    want to defend them claiming there are MODERATES among them, would any of them please tell a
    peon like me, whether all those dancing and giving out candy as joy in the streets of QUEENS, NY
    while people were jumping to their deaths from the WTC windows, were not MODERATES ?????

  • Schlomotion

    This is a very sensible and well-written article. I posit that the "tolerance for high levels of criminality" is trickle down immorality. People see the futility of behaving legally when their government behaves illegally, so they decide that the only way to win the rat race is to dispose of illusions of morality and act out of pure self-interest, taking what they want, when they want, and buying what they want, when they want. No one saves their money, because no one trusts the money. People kill one another off the block for resources, because that's what the government does.

  • http://Baersart.com Jane Larson Baer

    I live in a little neighborhood of about 800 that over the years has had about 400 Mexicans move in (sometimes they are or have family members who are in the US illegally) Those who are not in the heroin sellng street gang are shielding them. It would be much better for the mothers of girls whose gangster boyfriends got them pregnant and now use their apartment as a safe house for stashing and hiding out…if the border patrol were allowed to sweep through the neighborhood but we are a sanctuary city and so the Mexicans are driven down the path to ruin.

  • Janet S

    Dr. Williams is absolutely right. For evidence, just check out your local schools. I used to teach and found that black students, with the exception of those born outside the US, were in general my biggest discipline issues. They feel no need to pay attention in class, are disrespectful and feel that it's all social hour – completely disrupting class for everyone else. With that kind of attitude, it is no surprise to me that you see so much crime – they have this odd sense of entitlement without having earned it. Foreign-born students are generally exceptional – hard-working and polite. It seems to me that, in the case of the black community, when they point a finger at the rest of us, they ought to realize that 3 fingers are pointing back at them.

    • DMW

      Sounds like the season of the HBO series "The Wire", which explored in detail what goes on in an inner-city (Baltimore) middle school regarding how to deal with "at risk" youth. Seems, given the large amount of socio-cultural influences (or lack thereof), you can't. The series shows what happens with a lack of "good" men in families and the 'hood.

    • aspacia

      This is not my experience in Vegas, but was in Rialto CA, Rodney King's hometown. He was still living there 10 years ago.

  • mrbean

    I watched Bill O'reilly last night and he he had Bernie Goldberg on and they scolded the MSM for reporting white on black crime and said how the MSM ignored black ob black crime and brought up several incidences of ead. But these two PC infected ratings seekers stayed a mile away from black on white crime which is epidemic, from murders, to brutal rapes, to assaults (usually multiple blacks on one white), bank roberries and burglaries, muggings, flash mob robberies by black teens and older nation-wide, and 60% of blacks on welfare fraudulently. That would be proper in-depth reporting and we shouldn't expect that from Ted Baxter Oreilly and Goldberg who would lose his spot on Bryan Gumbel's show if he said anything about black on white crime. Look up the Wichita KA and the Knoxville TN horrific rape, mutilation torture, murder by chimpouts on whites ignored by the MSM.

  • http://LechDharma.blogspot.com Lech Dharma

    If crimes were disproportionately being committed by redheads wearing purple pants, it only makes sense to automatically be "suspicious" of redheads wearing purple pants.

  • thabomophiring

    A recent study in Vermont concluded that police stop Blacks on average more even though statistically they found more transgressions with Whites.

    That is the problem with racial profiling – it is really just racism with pretense of scientific validation. So yes, supporting racial profiling is racism – the facts and the tragedies that result from it like Travyon Martin speak volumes

    • Don Kosloff

      Of course they find more transgressions (undefined) among whites in Vermont. Vermont is 98% white.

      • Thabo Mophiring

        I am going to assume you are able to understand percentages and how that would have been applied

        For example out of a 1000 whites stooped – y% have transgressions
        Out of 1000 Blacks.stopped – x% have transgressions.

        Now in Vermont y is greater than x. Kapish or do we have to do a maths lesson.
        Your objection lacks the insight of grade 5 pupil. The police still target Blacks.the unfortunate 2% you speak off more. Apply the above. Thank you

  • panola

    Jessie Jackson said:

    "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage of 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."

    More proof that profiling is only acceptable when blacks do it.

  • Ghostwriter

    I hope that this finally gets a discussion without the racial invectives and fools like Al Sharpton. I'd like a calm,rational discussion without racial bitterness. I hope that conversation comes.