Racial Profiling and Racism

I know this may shock some of you, but there are Asian racists. There are Native American racists. There are Latino racists. There are African-American racists. And, yes, there most certainly are white racists.

Just about three years ago (January 2003), the Boston Globe did a study on racial profiling, "racial profiling" being code for "white police officer harassing black motorist". Be honest, how many of you that read the first reference to racial profiling above immediately visualized the white police officer and the black motorist? How could you not? Anyway, no surprise, the results of the study showed that minorities received more tickets per stop than whites.

So, I wrote a letter to the author of the article asking what was the race of the police officer in the traffic stops upon which all of the findings were based. He responded that the race of the police officer was not recorded.

Six months pass and out of the blue I get an email from the Globe reporter telling me that the next Boston Sunday Globe (July 2003) will have a follow-up to the earlier study and that it will include data based on the race of the police officer. Yes, I'm impacting the discussion!

Lo and behold, the data suggests, just as I started this post, all races of police officers have a tendency to ticket some motorists of a different race more frequently than they do motorists of their own race. The worst "offenders" were African-American police officers that ticketed Latino motorists at the highest rate of all police officer/motorist combinations.

I did not write this post to agitate the African-American community. I write it in hopes of moving the "racial profiling" discussion where it belongs. Simply, all racial profiling that is nothing but harassment is wrong. Everybody needs to recognize this so we can have a real discussion about reducing the frequency of racial harassment. Police officers of all races commit this harassment and all races are victims of this harassment. The discussion of "racial profiling" should not only be centered on black victimization (requiring damages) and white guilt (requiring punishment) or white shame (requiring accommodations).

Anyway, the letter I wrote based on yet another Boston Globe article that appeared this week:

Editor,

I'm sure all of us not pursuing an iniquitous agenda would agree that the following passage on racial profiling (Union lawyer urges court to halt officer ID rule, December 10), "Officers who stop a disproportionate number of minorities won't necessarily be punished", should have read, "Officers who stop a disproportionate number of motorists that don't look like themselves won't necessarily be punished."

As a recent Boston Globe study (July 2003) showed, minority police officers have a tendency to racially profile as well; African-American police officers, according to the Globe study, ticketed Latino motorists at a greater rate than any other police officer/motorist combination.

Racial profiling manifested as harassment is always wrong. This form of harassment will best be reduced when those serious about fixing the problem reclaim the discussion from the agenda-pushers and those intellectually bullied by agenda-pushers. (End of letter.)

All racial harassment is wrong; if you disagree with me, I'd love to hear from you. All police officers need to be reminded, trained, coached, and every other verb that applies, that they cannot harass motorists based on race.