I grew up in Darryl Gates’ Los Angeles, and I am a Hispanic male (or is it Hispanic-American now. I think I used to be a Latino male, back when African Americans were Black. I guess Black Power just didn’t have staying power or something, but that’s another rant). Nowadays I hear a lot about racial profiling, particularly as it relates to the so called war on terror (Just how it is a war, and what war means in that context is pretty mysterious to me, but that too is another story). I underwent racial profiling when I was younger, as did many of my darker skinned friends and acquaintances. I’d be pulled over or questioned by cops in Los Angeles (and moreso in Santa Barbara in the 1980’s when I was in college).

Even when I was that age, I understood why it was being done. I didn’t like it, and found it annoying, but I usually found that since I was respectful, calm, reserved, and cogent, and the fact that I didn’t have any outstanding warrants, I wouldn’t be treated too poorly. Being a teenage male, and having testosterone flowing, primal alpha male dominance things did come up on occasion, and I was able to hold it in check. I know that part of that was a bit of fear (which Darryl believed in instilling in the citizenry) since I honestly felt that the police would physically abuse me given very little provocation, and such abuse could easily escalate to my being shot. My credo was to not argue with a man that had a holstered gun and a badge.

Did some cops give me a harder time then others? You betcha. Was it unfair. Yep. Did it happen to the white kids? Nope. What blew my mind though was when I would see some minority youth giving a cop a hard time, and then get roughed up/cuffed when the cops ran their information and came up with an outstanding warrant.

As an adult, I have a somewhat different perspective, and do recognize the need for profiling. I also feel that profiling does fail to some degree when it comes to hunting middle class white folks, particularly women. Of course, for the most part women are far less likely to commit violent crimes.

It seems to me that there are four classes of people that are very much against racial profiling when it comes to the war on terror. Lawyers, who stand to make money, the people that are likely to be profiled (whether innocent or not), the Blame America First types, and middle/upper class folks that are simply filled with liberal guilt (many of whom are in the Blame America First crowd). When I hear the anti-profiling types complain, the complaints generally come down to three possibilities. First is that it is simply wrong to blame an entire group for the actions of a few when the supermajority of the actual group is blameless. While this is true, the blameless aren’t being blamed, although they are being subjected to greater scrutiny. I do believe that this argument has some merit, but I think it also falls flat in some way. What it does is that it holds completely blames those in the group that simply stand by silently. It is certainly possible that there is some group of Muslim patriots similar to the “Go For Broke Battalion” 442nd regimental team in of World War II fame. I have heard of no formation of a crack middle eastern group of anti-terrorist investigators having been formed in the United States. I can only hope that is because they are a closely kept secret weapon in the war on terror. I would bet that they haven’t been recruited, and/or don’t exist. Honestly, if we want to conduct and win the War on Terror, that is exactly what the President should do, is to make a personal call to those citizens that can best help our country in this global war. If such a call is heeded or ignored would speak volumes, and further influence the population’s attitudes towards those people’s that happen to share a common ancestry with Muslim terrorists.

Would people call that racial profiling?