Why is racial profiling frowned upon?

[Booshman]

It's cute that you still think you were right about the ecological fallacy when you're the only one who thinks so.

It's okay though. Endus did your job for you.

Besides that, I've learned to pretty much tune most of what you say out when it comes to matters of race. You tend to only ever see non-whites as victims of white systems. At least that's how you come off to me.

Not exactly a great starting point for objectivity.

Such fantastic posturing.

Endus didn't do my job, because you were wrong right off the bat. Which I demonstrated early on. You just said I was wrong and then repeated why I said your argument and logic fails, while implying that I said something else.

And you only "tune me out", because you have a history of looking uneducated whenever I respond to your posts on race. You're just a passive-aggressive race baiter who isn't nearly as clever as he wishes he was. Who tries to present himself as being neutral, but always fails at it, as the threads he posts in progresses.

[Laize]

Such fantastic posturing.

Endus didn't do my job, because you were wrong right off the bat. Which I demonstrated early on. You just said I was wrong and then repeated why I said your argument and logic fails, while implying that I said something else.

And you only "tune me out", because you have a history of looking uneducated whenever I respond to your posts on race.

See, you say that but your first post is just a link to the ecological fallacy... which means you misunderstood the ecological fallacy. End of story.

And it's hardly "uneducated" to question the status quo. If anything it's a far worse thing to just accept things as they are without question.

[Sky High]

There's three issues.

The first, as pointed out; you're targeting innocent people due to solely superficial characteristics. You're saying that black guy looks like a criminal because he's black. That's outrageously racist. That's the really obvious one.

The second, which isn't as obvious, is that the entire idea of profiling is absolute hokum. The majority of whichever group you're looking at are innocent of any wrongdoing. And no group is fully 100% free from offenders. Meaning you're making a judgement call that a certain rate of offense is "okay", and it's higher rates than that which are "bad" and you'll target those groups. That is an entirely subjective line to draw, and in pretty much every single case, it's not drawn for any objective statistical basis, but merely to justify the outstanding racism.

The third issue, which is entirely damning of the entire concept, is that it ignores the population levels in question. Going by this FBI data, ~2,600,000 African-Americas were arrested for something in 2011. However, ~6,500,000 Caucasian-Americans were arrested, about 2.5 times as many. Yes, there are significantly more Caucasian-Americans than African-Americans, population-wise, and the rate of offense is higher for the latter, but the greater proportion of actual criminals is still white dudes. So if you're profiling African-Americans due to the rate, you're missing out on the majority of actual criminals. Which means profiling is failing to actually accomplish its purpose.

boom, couldn't have said it better.
if you look at the practice as it was performed with the NYPD, it was more or less about bullying then actually stoping crime.

[twelvethirty]

I personally dont have a problem with it. The statistics dont lie. Sure its not fair, but nothing rarely is. Minorities statistically commit more crime, so as unfair as it may be if you want to prevent crime you need to look at those groups. Muslims commit acts of terrorism, if you want to prevent it, you look there.

[Booshman]

See, you say that but your first post is just a link to the ecological fallacy... which means you misunderstood the ecological fallacy. End of story.

And it's hardly "uneducated" to question the status quo. If anything it's a far worse thing to just accept things as they are without question.

Except that the foundation of your entire argument was built on an ecological fallacy. So I don't have to repeat myself again....

Thanks for solidifying my point. You're arguing that particular individuals should be treated with suspicion by default, and assumed of doing things that some in their group have done. It's the same exact thing. Which is foolish, and is exactly why this thread is "done".

[Laize]

boom, couldn't have said it better.
if you look at the practice as it was performed with the NYPD, it was more or less about bullying then actually stoping crime.

Yep. This thread was pretty much over when Endus posted.

[Booshman]

Yep. This thread was pretty much over when Endus posted.

You spelled "Booshman" wrong. But I forgive you.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Then Laize, please just ignore the "other" and move on. Endus is the Ender of Threads when it's necessary.

[Goretex]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

/thread

If you're a white male odds are stacked against you just watch the media. But on another note what you linked that struck me, is the majority of rich people voted democratic. Which is odd because Democrats want to take money from the rich even if the rich are Democrats.

- - - Updated - - -

What bugs me is that "we" as a nation have gotten so sensative that we change the definitions of words like "thug" to be racist which it isn't.

[Laize]

Then Laize, please just ignore the "other" and move on. Endus is the Ender of Threads when it's necessary.

I am.

He's got a serious case of the mads, though. And it's giving me a chuckle.

[Slant]

Alright look, first off before I get crucified out of hand I want to point out that the practice WAS ruled Constitutional in the USA via US v Armstrong. Nevertheless the practice remains illegal in most (if not all) jurisdictions.

My question is why? At least under certain circumstances, why would it be wrong to profile?

To be clear, I'm neither for nor against it.

On one hand, I think it's wrong to presume all members of a given race are criminals.

On the other hand, I think it's downright stupid to ignore the demographics of crime.

To be sure, there are white terrorists and criminals... but by and large the vast majority of terrorists are of Arab ethnicity, and most criminals in the US are black. So why do we think it makes sense, when trying to prevent crime, to treat all races as equally likely to offend?

Because, friend, skin color does not matter. Profile education, parents, upbringing, genetics all you like, but the one thing that is highly irrelevant is skin color.

Edit: Well, exept when the crime in question involves a very dark night and a nude black guy using his natural camouflage to jump someone and yell "Boo!" or do something else nasty to them.

[Themius]

So why is this thread still going? Despite the fact that it was ended by the third post in this thread. If the OP is still trying to justify/argue in favor of the "pro" side, even after being shown that the backbone of their position is a giant fallacy, then they have a clear and obvious negative agenda. No matter how nice and neutral they tried to sound in their opening's disclaimer.

You know how these people are, they like to show a nice face and play nice while reaching around your back and stabbing you.

[GreatOak]

Is this a real question?

A lot of things would be easier if we just discriminated against people or ignored their rights. If we really want to make law enforcement easier lets just abolish half of the bill of rights and the 14th amendment .

[Deleted]

You have jar of 20 cookies, 9 have laxatives in them, 1 is poisoned with cyanide and will kill you, will you give cookies a change and eat 1 at random? Or will you use prejudice against eating from this jar and get different one?

Racism is bullshit, survival is real, and i don't have time to send each fucking cookie to lab so i can make sure it's safe to eat.

[GreatOak]

You have jar of 20 cookies, 9 have laxatives in them, 1 is poisoned with cyanide and will kill you, will you give cookies a change and eat 1 at random? Or will you use prejudice against eating from this jar and get different one?

Racism is bullshit, survival is real, and i don't have time to send each fucking cookie to lab so i can make sure it's safe to eat.

People aren't cookies

[Deleted]

People aren't cookies

And my analogy is not for people with IQ at or below average, so please move along.

[Themius]

You have jar of 20 cookies, 9 have laxatives in them, 1 is poisoned with cyanide and will kill you, will you give cookies a change and eat 1 at random? Or will you use prejudice against eating from this jar and get different one?

Racism is bullshit, survival is real, and i don't have time to send each fucking cookie to lab so i can make sure it's safe to eat.

It's more like this.

"you have 20 cookies in a jar, 15 of them are sugar cookies and 5 of them are ginger cookies 2/5 ginger cookies are bad while 5/15 sugar cookies are bad."

There are more bad sugar cookies; however, people hold a prejudice against ginger cookies because of their higher rates to be bad so people will opt to eat more sugar cookies which have a lower rate of poisoning but in the end will injure many more people.

And

The third issue, which is entirely damning of the entire concept, is that it ignores the population levels in question. Going by this FBI data, ~2,600,000 African-Americas were arrested for something in 2011. However, ~6,500,000 Caucasian-Americans were arrested, about 2.5 times as many. Yes, there are significantly more Caucasian-Americans than African-Americans, population-wise, and the rate of offense is higher for the latter, but the greater proportion of actual criminals is still white dudes. So if you're profiling African-Americans due to the rate, you're missing out on the majority of actual criminals. Which means profiling is failing to actually accomplish its purpose.

~ Endus

[derpkitteh]

racial profiling doesn't help much. i've seen some pretty straight laced looking white guys that are some really bad people. look at jeffrey dahmer.

no, they should profile based on their actions, clothes, tattoos, mannerisms or anything that might be a give away that they're dangerous or live a less than clean life.

[Raptor With a Saber]

Because it helps track down criminals in neighbor hoods that aren't full of the same breed of people. Thus making it wrong that someone is being caught because they are black.

[Booshman]

I am.

He's got a serious case of the mads, though. And it's giving me a chuckle.

Pointing out that you're wrong is "the mads"? Nice "cool story bro"-esque coping mechanism.