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Just Cuz vs. Just Cause: The Wisdom and
Necessity of Profiling
by Victor Wolzek
Last month (12/2/01), in the wake of 9/11 and in the thick
of "The War on Terror," 60 Minutes spotlighted the currently hot topic of
racial profiling. Per usual, reason and common sense were repeatedly
drowned out by pat, reductive, pseudo-appeals to constitutionality: "You
cannot single out individuals just cuz they look a certain way, just cuz
they have a certain name, just cuz they share a certain faith, etc."
Though this may sound noble and patriotic, especially when it is paired up
with heart-tugging footage of Japanese Americans being herded into camps
after Pearl Harbor, it cloaks a rhetorical sleight of hand. The "just cuz"
reduction of the whole to its parts obscures the "just cause" established
by the totality of those parts. "Just cuz" pseudo-arguments deny the
context and multiple factors that comprise a useful criminal profile.
While 60 Minutes and most journalists are currently focusing on
the issue of profiling Arabs, the ACLU, the Rainbow Coalition, and other
opportunist organizations have been beating the DWB (Driving While Black)
drum for a long time. The latter issue -- the profiling of young black
males -- is actually far more relevant to Americans. Despite the horrific
event in New York and the 24-hour CNN coverage of the war in Afghanistan,
"Arabs terrorists" are relatively rare and, despite the hype, have done
little damage. They destroyed landmarks and killed a total of
approximately 4,000 Americans (the WTC buildings were far emptier than
originally expected), including the anthrax victims and war casualties.
The street terrorism that comes largely in the form of young black males
is much quieter but far more catastrophic to individual victims and to
American culture as a whole.
As for curbing this far more prolific
street terrorism, I am for profiling as standard police procedure. I also
see it as an unavoidable, practical necessity. Not profiling minorities
per se, but profiling whatever groups are known to commit the most crime.
If it's blacks (it is), profile them, if it's Mexicans (yup), profile
them. It's different city to city, county to county (though where blacks
and Mexicans go, the crime surely follows: is it racist if it's true?).
Formally race is but one element in a spectrum of factors that an officer
considers when he judges the probability of criminal activity in a
situation (others include age, sex, location of activity, etc; in short,
it's contextual). A cop is not likely to give a second thought to a
70-year-old woman in a Chevy Impala, but a 20-year-old black man touring
the projects in a souped-up Benz pumping NWA's "Fuck the Police" is
inviting extra attention. He expects to get it from the "bitches," why not
the cops, too? (I don't know about blacks, but Hispanic street drug
peddlers in San Francisco know this and use it to their advantage. On
Geary Street, it is common to see young wigger-dressed teenage hispanic
kids hanging on corners, taking orders and money, then running over to
their mother -- often pregnant and pushing a baby carriage--dropping off
the money and returning with cellophane-wrapped nuggets for the
customer).
Failing to pay special attention to known high-rate
offenders in the name of egalitarianism sacrifices the safety of real
citizens in the name of a theoretical -- and patently false -- ideal. Its
also bad economics, an inefficient use of finite resources. Plus, it goes
against the grain of common sense. If it's wrong to profile individuals
who fit a criminal type, wouldn't it also be wrong to profile
neighborhoods known for rampant criminality?
To put it in a
real-life geographical context, forbidding law enforcement from profiling
would be like insisting the San Francisco Police Department patrol
crime-free areas like the wealthy Pacific Heights district as thoroughly
as the crime-riddled Tenderloin District (where I once lived for over
three years). In Baltimore, it would be comparable to forcing cops to
patrol lush Dulaney Valley suburbs as thoroughly and regularly as decrepit
city neighborhoods that are well-known as open-air drug markets. In
effect, it mandates that officers attend to older, wealthy White people
walking dogs in elite areas as diligently as they do young, poor men of
color drinking "forties" outside of liquor stores in high-crime "hoods,"
lest they be charged with racism. That's not only illogical, it's just
plain stupid.
Though racism is real for a reason, paying special
attention to high-crime areas or groups (which does not equal harassing
them) is not racist in principle. If liberals really believed their own
rhetoric and were truly interested in improving the lives of minorities
instead of just ruining the lives of Whites, their argument would be as
follows: "Insofar as high crime areas are disproportionately populated by
minorities, most of whom are not criminals, the extra attention serves to
protect minorities most. The fact is," they would continue, "good people
of all ethnicities in high-crime areas want more police around and want
shady characters watched more closely."
But, as usual, they are
not interested in anything except further destabilizing and destroying
White communities and culture. Rather than do this outright, they create
the kind of confusing, quasi-racist racism-folded-back-on-itself situation
we have with profiling in urban America. Not only is it difficult to
imagine law-abiding citizens of any ethnicity preferring criminal
victimization to the inconvenience of being stopped or questioned when
innocent. It is also all too easy to imagine the same anti-profiling
activists accusing the police of racism or race-based neglect when they
discover that officers are giving equal patrol time to wealthy white
neighborhoods. The cops can't win. And that's the point.*
Cynical,
anti-police policies such as this should be implemented only with an
express, public caveat: when crime in bad areas escalates because police
are giving crime-free areas equal attention, they must hold their
"leaders" and activists accountable for the injustice. Not the police
who've done their bidding.
*Though it wasn't the focus of this article,
the Jewish stance on profiling is clear, and it follows their consistent
measure: is it good for...oh, you know. In Israel, for instance,
the profiling of Arabs 'just cuz' they're Arabs, regardless of any other
factors or context is the rule, and has been for years. Now that Arabs in
America are working against Jewish interests, it's totally kosher to
profile them as well. Profiling murderous, rioting, raping, stealing,
chronic-hazed young black males, the 3% of the poulation responsible for
approximately 70% of all crime? It's racism and cannot be tolerated.
Profiling an almost wholly benign population because it's the one ethnic
group in America that's seen the Jew-monstrosity up close and personally
and knows it ought to be nailed to the wall like a jellyfish? Oy Vey!
Do it today!
VICTOR
WOLZEK
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