Racial Profiling
A reprise by Mark Quasha Thomas (exiled somewhere in Africa)
to a previously published Contra Cabal article on Institutionalized Racism.
“Racial profiling depends on the perspective of the profiler . . . ” This statement by Paul Trummel reminded me of my criminology class which defined institutionalized racism as discrimination based on a person’s color. However, the issue is more than one of skin pigmentation. Modern discrimination predicates upon social stratification.
Racial profiling comprises more than data collection about people or ethnic groups based upon skin pigmentation. It also employs stereotyping based on what the profiler perceives as the behavior and appearance of an individual or cultural group, personal prejudice, and political expedience.
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Negative profiling contains an element of luck (being in the wrong place at the wrong time) conditioned by the personal perspective of the profiler. Profiling accuracy depends almost entirely on the profiler’s class, status, education, and cultural experience which inherently encourages class-based decision-making. [Institutionalized Racism]
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Often, law enforcement agencies turn to the public for help. In an experiment involving five crime profilers, a suspect’s handiwork was provided. Copies of evidence collected from various related crime scenes were handed to the five to study and come up with the profile of the subject. The five, working separately, were given eight hours to individually come up with a possible description of the suspect. After the eight hours, the five presented their results to the class. The results left the class more confused than they were before the start of the experiment; the similarities among the five results were less than 27%. Would such results be valuable if they were presented to a law enforcement agency?
Like crime profiling, we can never be 100% accurate when it comes to racial stereotyping. Three or so decades ago, the world was engulfed with the issue of skin pigmentation. Whenever anyone talked of race, the first thing that came to mind was of color stratification. In North America, people of black pigmentation became so paranoid about the issue they didn’t know whether they should be referred to us Black Americans, People of Color, Colored People, Negroes, African Americans or just Black.
In South Africa under Apartheid, the race war took a different path: the divide and conquer technique was effectively used. Proponents of the system found it easier to classify a people along color lines. With the world beginning to accept the equality among races, a new breed of racial discrimination has developed.
The oppressed have become the oppressors. In South Africa, the political dispensation has created a new breed of discrimination - classism. If it were wrong when the then minority white apartheid system oppressed the black Africans, is it acceptable to discriminate against the whites in the current system?
Classism, bias conditioned by social or economic class, routinely allows mistreatment of disadvantaged individuals through a societal imbalance of power. Nouveau-riche (people who have suddenly risen socially and economically to a higher status but do not have the necessary acceptance or skills) arm themselves against minority advancement. They claim to belong to a superior culture then viciously defend that posture.
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Institutions of the new political dispensation have coined the words “Previously Disadvantaged” (PD). PD is a politically correct term for black South Africans. Institutions, private and public, are expected to offer opportunities to the PDs regardless of their capability. This requirement, however, comes with various forms of politically offered incentives to the institutions, which most corporations accept. [Political Correctness]
Whites are left with non-effective voices and the world is quiet about it. Retrenchment of white people seems to be the unwritten requirement for most corporations. This profiling has sentenced the minority white population to a life of poverty. In order to escape this poverty, many professional white young men and women have been forced to migrate to other countries to seek employment opportunities.
The white population is not the only victim of this new form of profiling. Black Africans from other countries are not spared either. The irony is the amount of time and money the South African government spends globe trotting seeking skills development for the PDs. South Africa has a great number of exiled professionals. Despite their qualifications, most corporations, in an attempt to conform to the government’s employment policy, would not readily employ these professionals. [Loneliness of the Exiled Journo]
The huge number of refugee population without possibilities of being employed has forced the ‘non-South African’ population to set up their own businesses, which in most cases are quite successful. However, such ventures haven’t set well with the PDs; in the past three months Somalis operating successful businesses in Western Cape have become targets of discriminate attacks. There are reports of more than forty Somalis having been killed in what is believed to be xenophobic motivated incidences. [Somalis under Siege in South Africa]
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The refugee populations are individuals (or groups) who have escaped persecution in their home countries under United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) mandates only to be faced with more persecution in their safe haven. It does not fit the typical pattern of simple racial attacks; instead, it manifests in a new form of class-based profiling. How can this systematic cleansing of a people be justified? Council House, Seattle, Washington, USA provides an example.
[United Nations High Commission for Refugees]
National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) formed a non-profit corporation then built and later refurbished Council House. The corporation rents independent-living apartments to senior citizens. The apartment block does not classify as a nursing home and legally must not house vulnerable adults; however, Council House management classifies all senior citizens as vulnerable for political and financial expedience.
[Vulnerable Adults]
NCJW obtained federal financial assistance through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the original construction and rehabilitation. Residents have amortized the mortgage by paying rent over several decades while HUD continues to subsidize some rents and services.
The directors now "own" a building in a prime development area worth an estimated $40,000.000 for which they have invested absolutely nothing. In six years time, upon amortization of the mortgage, the directors can convert the building to a more lucrative use and leave poor people homeless. They have already started to convert the building using donated and non-profit funds to benefit themselves instead of the disadvantaged people for whom the donors intended the funding. [CH Directors' Names and Addresses]
Meanwhile, the directors and other wealthy Jews (supported by a cartel of straw judges and lawyers) oppressed elderly Jews and black people who they deem a lesser class. They incarcerated several of them on trumped-up charges and two alleged homicides have resulted from their terrorism.
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They especially target Shoah and European Holocaust survivors whom their staff call “Eurotrash” and black people they refer to as “kafirs” or “niggers”. Council House directors are not alone: they emulate elite groups that exploit and disparage poor or disadvantaged people throughout the United States and in many other countries. [Straw-Man Stratagem]
As a young boy, I recall my father pointing out, “ . . . people are often too blind to see a thorny field until they are pricked . . . ” That statement never made much sense to me then, but years later, it has become clear. It’s never our problem until it hits closest to home. When we read of cases of discrimination and intimidation, we never take them seriously until we ourselves become victims.
As a non-Muslim journalist, I did not care much about how the post 9-11 environment was to change the issue of racial profiling, especially for Muslims, until four Ugandan journalists were hauled to court on charges of terrorism. The evidence the prosecutors had against them was their cell phone numbers had been found in possession of killed Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) soldiers. [Lord’s Resistance Army]
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Effects of Anti-Terrorism Laws on Journalists. The arrests and subsequent arraignment of journalists is solely credited to the new Anti-Terrorism Laws, replicas of the America’s Patriot Act, now being adopted around the continent. The Ugandan Government, which was the first country in Africa to enact the law, had declared the LRA terrorists and anybody found to be associating with them guilty. Wouldn’t I, as a journalist, lose my objectivity if I were to file my stories without giving the so-called terrorists the right to reply?
Many times I have been stopped at airports because of various Arabic countries’ immigration stamps on my passport. The profiling currently at play is racial and religious in nature. Blacks in America would readily be associated with such crimes as murders, rapes, robberies and drug trafficking, while Arabs, and by extension Muslims, are becoming more associated with terrorism.
For political correctness, it’s convenient to say Arabs while in essence the profilers mean Muslims. Why else would a non-Arab South African journalist, Zaid Omar, traveling to Germany for the 2006 World Cup be detained for hours simply because one of his names happen to resemble one on the terror watch list?
[Political Correctness]
Conclusion
It seems pointless to argue over total eradication of discrimination by skin color. Unfortunately, skin pigmentation is a card that will always be played by both socio-political players whenever it’s convenient. Depending on geographical locations, there will always be a minority race. This is a fact that must be accepted, but acceptance and agreement are two different things.
I agree with Trummel that people of color are often given the leaner end of the stick. It’s indisputable that the most pernicious form of discrimination relates to class. Craig Jackson Calhoun, Social Science Research Council, writes in Understanding Sociology: "Our chances in life are based largely on the class into which we are born. Our actions (and those of our parents and others) can move us from one class to another, but class is one of the most basic and enduring features of social structures."
Trummel said, “I believe from my experience that blue collar/white collar prejudice trumps racial prejudice because it is based upon money and power.” If the social stratification were to be eliminated, the issues of racism (institutionalized or individualized) would be a thing of the past. However, cannot society survive when all people are equally considered?
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© Copyright 2006 by Mark Q. Thomas |
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