Profiling May Not be the Problem

In a recent NYT op-ed, Northeastern University researcher, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett suggested something that made me realize that our brains are wired to profile.

She describes our brains as predictive organs that make thousands of “neural ‘guesses’” at a time that “largely shape what you see, hear and otherwise perceive.”

Profiling in and of itself is not racially biased but, she contends, for some it may be “one pernicious way in which racial bias expresses itself.”

But those who seek to curb racism by curbing profiling seem misguided to me, especially when our brains are wired to subconsciously profile.

This is probably why so many people rolled their eyes when a law was pushed through in New York City prohibiting the running of credit checks on job applicants.

As justification, in part, advocates pointed out that the percentage of people with scores of 700 or above is less than half among blacks what it is among whites.

A recent Illinois study found that the average credit score in minority neighborhoods was 107 to 130 points lower than in other neighborhoods but so was the percentage who made late payments, by three to six times.

Poverty is more likely the cause than racism.

In the process, people seeking social justice on behalf of others often make unfortunate and inaccurate stereotypes in the process such as linking race to poverty when as the excellent blog Breaking Brown points out “the real welfare queen is uneducated, single and white.”

Of course, I agree that bad credit should not be used to disqualify a candidate before allowing them an opportunity to explain.  A check of existing employees in most workplaces should be enough to warrant credit counseling as a benefit.

On a related subject, an excellent investigative report in Mother Jones this month incorporates research done at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

It documents the horrific cost of gun violence, $229 billion each year.

Much of it, nearly $13 million a day is passed on to taxpayers.

To put this in perspective, this will soon eclipse the cost of smoking on society.

The report points out that while 93% of gun suicide victims are white, 57% of gun homicide victims are black.  So are the majority of offenders according to FBI statistics.

In a separate but related piece, the researchers point out the huge disparity in the percentage of homicides solved when there is a white victim compared to case involving black victims.

Police shootings are a tiny sliver of the gun violence in America.  Based on the way our brains work, it makes sense that they will concentrate resources in minority neighborhoods on behalf of minority victims, in pursuit of minority offenders.

But essayist Tim Wise calculates from FBI data that only about 1% of African Americans including 2% of black males will commit a violent crime in a given year.

He continues that “No more than .7 percent (seven-tenths of one percent) of African Americans will commit a violent crime against a white person in a given year, and fewer than .3 percent (three-tenths of one percent) of whites will be victimized by a black person in a given year.”

He concludes, “Whites are 6 times more likely to be murdered by another white person as by a black person.”

It seems to me that profiling isn’t the problem nor is the use of statistics which can be a useful way of predicting crime.

Racism is the problem and it is people who are racist.

Assessing Prejudices

Last month, on the last full day of our annual family rendezvous at a lakeside cabin in the Pacific Northwest, I took my brother-in-law a mile or so up a peninsula where he borrowed a jet ski to give my grandsons and their cousins one last treat.

On my short trip back to the cabin, I heard a comment on the radio that kept turning over and over in my mind as Mugs, my English Bulldog, and I made our return cross-country in the Jeep to our home in Durham, North Carolina.

“…if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened?”  - President Barack Obama

I was moved by the eloquence of this comment.  As an exercise in introspection, I took stock during the trip of all of the ways I may stereotype people.  Even at the age of five, I was adamantly anti-racist, but as I drove I wondered in what ways I may still be stereotyping others.

The first group that came to mind is grossly obese people.  I also snap-judge slow drivers and those who seem to deliberately walk very slowly when they cross streets.  I snap-judge gang members, both those predatory to poor neighborhoods but also those who are fringe factions of political parties.

I prejudge people who cluelessly or deliberately let their dogs urinate or defecate along other people’s yards or in parks.  I prejudge idiots who text when they drive.  Too often, I prejudge people who seem to talk but never listen as well as people who listen but never talk.

I’m not racist but that doesn’t mean I don’t prejudge in other ways or that I might be prejudiced at some level.  It has been reported that earlier this week, at the Teen Choice Awards, actor Ashton Kutcher, as part of his remarks noted that “I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than.”

I am probably prejudiced toward those who do feel they are above doing some jobs.  I am also impatient with people who demean people who work in restaurants -particularly fast food places – as they are typically people who couldn’t do those jobs themselves, regardless of education level.

Being from Idaho, I probably have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to people from Utah, because I think they often seem to look down on Idaho.  Raised on a ranch, I am a bit prejudiced about potato farmers.  I am also prejudiced when it comes to blight such as roadside billboards.

I may not be racist but I know from this exercise that I also prejudge people who are or appear to be racist regardless of color, nationality and religion.  Prejudices of any kind eat away our judgment.

My adopted state of North Carolina has more than its share of hate groups.  Five are based in Raleigh where the General Assembly meets.  Some who belong may be members there.  One is even based in my hometown of Durham.  Some are white supremacists, some are black separatists.

They should not be our only concern.   Maybe the best antidote to hate and prejudice begins first with introspection.