Is There A Sound Basis For Racial Profiling?

[Audley Strange]

Pragmatic bigotry? Interesting concept ...

Well in some cultures graft and kickbacks are seen as normal means of doing business and in other cultures it is reviled as corruption. So if someone from the latter culture comes into a nation which the former culture is prevalent and kicks up a fuck about it, demands that everyone be above board and transparent and follow his rules so he can play rather than play by their rules, they are right to tell him to fuck off.

[rainbow]

Pleeze fer chrissakes, nobody start a debate about whether or not race really exists.




( That one's for rEv.)

Race is a set of prejudices relating to a set of people that may or may not fit the set of prejudices.
Thus it exists but is meaningless.

[Tyrannical]

Pleeze fer chrissakes, nobody start a debate about whether or not race really exists.




( That one's for rEv.)

Race is a set of prejudices relating to a set of people that may or may not fit the set of prejudices.
Thus it exists but is meaningless.

But the prejudice is true and accurate when statistically applied to the population, though individual results may vary.

[rainbow]

Pleeze fer chrissakes, nobody start a debate about whether or not race really exists.




( That one's for rEv.)

Race is a set of prejudices relating to a set of people that may or may not fit the set of prejudices.
Thus it exists but is meaningless.

But the prejudice is true and accurate when statistically applied to the population, though individual results may vary.

You're entitled to your opinion, no matter how foolish it is.
However by doing so, you would expose the very minute size of the intellect that goes with such an opinion.

...just saying.

[JimC]

I'm sure that it has been used by ignorant and racist police officers following their own agenda.

However, perhaps the reaction against it goes to far when (as happened in Melbourne in the past), police media releases about suspects in some crime were forbidden to use phrases such as "of asian appearance" etc...

That has since been changed, for sensible and pragmatic reasons...

[FBM]

Ugg. It's a sign of how little else I have to do atm that I'm even chiming in.

Some ideas - mostly from geneticists - that I ran across while discussing this over at rEv's forum:

When the human genome was mapped, it showed that humans are 99.9% identical. That's enough for geneticists to call it a monotypic species. Further laboratory research shows that within that 0.1%, there is more variation within "races" than between them. Yes, you can be more genetically similar to a black guy or Asian girl than to another caucasian, apparently. The genes that control for skin, hair and eye color are very few, and the phenotypic differences we can see are largely a matter of how those genes are expressed, not so much on their composition. From the point of view of genetics, race is a fiction.

On the other hand, biologists, anthropologists, etc, haven't historically been able to access species' genetic information, so phenotype is most often used to assign positions in taxonomy. This often requires observation of minute details that are consistent in a population but absent or varied in other populations. These variations are overwhelmingly the result of nurture, not nature, in the sense that populations phenotypes adapt to their environments over the very long periods of time. In the past, people were much less mobile than they are today, so phenotypes reflect this. Anyway, in the biological sciences, there is something akin to race, but that term isn't commonly used, afaict. But distinguishing population-specific variations based on phenotype is a useful activity for biologists, even though it may say nothing whatsoever about the species' genotypes.

So, from what I gather as a non-expert, race among humans is fiction in genetics, but a useful fiction for biologists (and, incidentally, law enforcement).

In medicine, very few diseases are race-specific, so the concept is of dubious value there, either.

Feel free to correct any misunderstandings in what I wrote there. I'm far from being an expert on this.

[Galaxian]

I'm inviting Galaxian and PinkHarrier here forthwith.

Invitation accepted, thank you! I will communicate your kind invitation to PH, incase he hasn't seen it yet

No. Cultural profiling yes. Some cultures do have common behaviours that other cultures consider dangerous and criminal, so if some group come into your culture and start breaking specific laws commonly, one can look at that community and say... "check those fucks out first."

Maybe .. Certainly makes more sense than "racial" profiling ... but even then, I think a policy of cultural profiling would potentially be founded, promoted and implemented more in bigotry than pragmatism.

I completely agree it would be implimented by bigotry, bigotry of one culture's superiority over another, which in your own culture, if another is causing problems within it, is a fair enough assumption.
Everyone is bigoted, no one is totally open and inclusive.

Both of you have drifted off topic. The OP was "Racial Profiling", NOT "Cultural Profiling".

Now, there is some linkage between race or subspecies, & culture. For example a pit-pony would prefer to be out in the open fields, even if it has been raised in a coal mine. And a mole rat would prefer to be in a constricted burrow even if it has been raised in an open field. It is what the Germans call, "Lebensfreude Erfüllung", that is the happiness of being what one was intended for.

So, there may be some natural tendency for various human, present day, subspecies to be inclined towards different cultural expressions such as physicality, or type of language, or musical expression, or academia, etc. But this thread is not about that.

Perhaps the Lebensfreude Erfüllung is strong enough that someone raised totally in a culture foreign to their subspecies does not gain as much happiness as if they had been raised in their native culture. Much as a mole rat or pony would reach its maximum happiness potential only if raised in the habitat Nature had designed it for, or an approximation thereof.

[Tyrannical]

So, there may be some natural tendency for various human, present day, subspecies to be inclined towards different cultural expressions such as physicality, or type of language, or musical expression, or academia, etc. But this thread is not about that.

I would say that the amount of culture that is genetically influenced is relevant.
Culture provides an interesting feed back loop that also affects genetics over time, as those that resist cultural norms are less successful at passing their genes to the offspring. An example being the criminally inclined that are jailed or executed, and the lack of support or negative social feelings towards their offspring.

[Seth]

No. Cultural profiling yes. Some cultures do have common behaviours that other cultures consider dangerous and criminal, so if some group come into your culture and start breaking specific laws commonly, one can look at that community and say... "check those fucks out first."

With this I agree. Why we are searching three year old children and 80 year old ladies instead of Middle-eastern males between 18 and 45 FIRST is beyond me. Political correctness. If the enemy that's trying to destroy your country and kill people can, even generally, be identified by ethnic or cultural clues, then it's only sensible to pay more attention to such people. This doesn't mean all Arabs are terrorists, or that all Arabs should be orifice-checked, it merely means that we should use our resources wisely rather than allocate out of political correctness.

Of course the inevitable red-herring argument of "but not all terrorists are of Middle-eastern ethnicity" will pop up shortly, to which I respond, true, but irrelevant. We know that MOST of the terrorists we have faced in recent years are both Islamic and of Middle-Eastern ethnicity. Therefore it behooves us to pay more attention to Middle-eastern Islamists.

As for the complaint that it's not "fair" to profile Middle-eastern Islamists because the vast majority are peaceful, law abiding people, I say sorry about that, but you could help by exposing Muslim extremists among you so we don't have to go rooting around for them.

[MrJonno]

Don't trust yellow people they never end up doing any work and just spend all their time lying around in hospital moaning about a new liver

[JimC]

Don't trust yellow people they never end up doing any work and just spend all their time lying around in hospital moaning about a new liver

[Robert_S]

No. Cultural profiling yes. Some cultures do have common behaviours that other cultures consider dangerous and criminal, so if some group come into your culture and start breaking specific laws commonly, one can look at that community and say... "check those fucks out first."

With this I agree. Why we are searching three year old children and 80 year old ladies instead of Middle-eastern males between 18 and 45 FIRST is beyond me. Political correctness. If the enemy that's trying to destroy your country and kill people can, even generally, be identified by ethnic or cultural clues, then it's only sensible to pay more attention to such people. This doesn't mean all Arabs are terrorists, or that all Arabs should be orifice-checked, it merely means that we should use our resources wisely rather than allocate out of political correctness.

Of course the inevitable red-herring argument of "but not all terrorists are of Middle-eastern ethnicity" will pop up shortly, to which I respond, true, but irrelevant. We know that MOST of the terrorists we have faced in recent years are both Islamic and of Middle-Eastern ethnicity. Therefore it behooves us to pay more attention to Middle-eastern Islamists.

As for the complaint that it's not "fair" to profile Middle-eastern Islamists because the vast majority are peaceful, law abiding people, I say sorry about that, but you could help by exposing Muslim extremists among you so we don't have to go rooting around for them.

That Boston bomber looked pretty white to me. So did that fucker who got busted in a sting operation trying to set off a bomb in my state capitol.

I suppose there is something like the current laws about asking for and ID for cigarettes and alcohol. Everybody who looks under 40 gets carded.

I can see the logic in it. I used to have a good full beard at the age of 17. I rarely got carded.

[Audley Strange]

Both of you have drifted off topic. The OP was "Racial Profiling", NOT "Cultural Profiling".

Hello, get used to it.

[JimC]

Both of you have drifted off topic. The OP was "Racial Profiling", NOT "Cultural Profiling".

Hello, get used to it.

Meandering threads are part of the quaint, rustic charm of Rationalia...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Both of you have drifted off topic. The OP was "Racial Profiling", NOT "Cultural Profiling".

Hello, get used to it.

Meandering threads are part of the quaint, rustic charm of Rationalia...

Bacon.