I love profiling
Is it an actual cdrime now? Thought crimes are a sin against God.
If I have my car stolen in the middle of the night, I am not going to look for 80-year-old gramma’s
If I have a plane blown up I am going to suspect Arab Terrorists
If I own a store and 10% of my customers are responsibel for 90% of the shjoplifting I am going to be suspicious every time one of them walk in
That’s profiling, and its a good thing
How about this scenario -
Walking in the zoo with your family.
You see a bunch of AA males all wearing white T-shirts coming in, flashing gang signs, etc.
You can
a) Ignore your warning bells (profiling) and stay at the zoo, hoping there’s nothing going on.
b) “Profile” and consider that it’s a good time to go swimming or get ice cream somewhere outside of the zoo...
If a car with 4 young white guys inside is in the hood, driving around slowly on a Friday night, will they get pulled over or at least watched? In 1986 I was at the Canadian border, ironically at St. Stephen. The driver and I were both in our 20s and had long hair. He had Dead stickers on his car. We were waved over and searched. I was released, but my friend spent a few months in Canadian jail. We were obviously profiled.
Profiling is simply an exercise of inductive reasoning. It only becomes a problem when the induction is applied as deduction. In other words a trait that is exhibited disproportionately in a class is then thought to exist in every or most of that same class.