Profiling works, I gaurantee had every person of middle eastern descent been checked on Sept 11 the tragedy would have been prevented; however is it fair to the hundreds of innoccent people targeted: I don't know, I've never been stopped because of my race before. I suspect were I hiding nothing it would be little more than a hassle to me. Profiling is done to generate an idea of what type of person may have commited a crime, other factors are involved besides race: such as age, social status, and even the type of job the perpmight have, alot of things. All these things are combined to give investigators an idea of what type of person is responsible. Profiling is like an educated guess, a hypothesis of sorts. Alot of people say profiling is wrong because it violates the group being profiled and I would agree were it targeting one group of people over and over, but it appears to be more specific to the crime than anything else. Profiling is not the Nazis blaming every social problem in 1930's Germany on the Jews or detaining Japanese people in America during WWII. Profiling serves a purpose and as long as it's done responsibly and with respect to those being targeted I have no problem with it.
I see your point. I just didn't know why anyone would profile the sniper as being white. I just assumed crazy. Check this out though:
No apology needed for me - I'm a white male and I would have put money down that the sniper was a white male. Look at the list of convicted serial killers - almost exclusively white males. Odds are you, I and others were correct - though the odds didn't happen this time - it landed 00. These guys weren't even driving a white car or van. I wonder how many road blocks they drove through? One of the few times they weren't stopped for dwb.
White or black ..I was really hoping this guy wasn't US military but now that they have him it's better then what I thought..al qaeda...at least this way it's probably the end of it.
It's probably mentioned before, but the scariest thing is that if he just stopped and went into hiding for a year he might not have been caught. The man (they?) was smart but he ended up being too smart.
This isn't the end of the story. It is the end of the killings (thank God). John Mohammad trained at s camp in Alabama called Ground Zero...the camp has ties to al-Qaeda.
AB-- No apology needed. I also thought the perp was a white guy, but there's a big difference between making guesses about one guy you know is doing wrong and trying to figure out who might be a perp without previous knowledge of a crime. Nobody was looking at this fat white guy thinking "That SOB looks like a sniper." No cops stopped me because I had a "sniper attitude." No deputy ever watched me drive by and pulled me over because my beatup early 90's SUV looks like a sniper vehicle. When I drive around with the windows down and The Who blasting out my tinny factory speakers, nobody ever says, "Hey, why do you listen to that sniper music?" There are two different things going on here. I fully support profiling when the cops are trying to catch someone who is known to have committed a crime. I'm less enthusiastic when it's used to try to predict who is or might become a criminal. I do think the latter is based too much on race. When one of the majority commits a crime, too often the attitude is "it's some loser", when a member of the minority commits a crime, too often the assumption is "it's those people." (This is, of course a generalization based on anecdotal evidence I've encountered and is not meant to reflect on the fine enlightened individuals we have here in the Hangout.)
speaking of profiling...i think i failed to mention i was searched TWICE on my way back from Orlando a couple of weeks back. must be my dangerously dashing good looks that tipped them off. that, or my fly was undone.
Great thread- I personally didn't think of race to much in this case, but certainly in the past i've lumped certain crimes with ethnicity. I was definitely thinking this guy had to be military, but even though he was he was a mechanic (was he ever trained as a "sniper" haven't heard). I think he was very lucky to go on as long as he did, we're all fortunate he made the mistakes he did. This could have lasted alot longer had he not made phone calls, left notes, etc.
Great post Rimrocker. I feel the need to address the term white trash as doubly racist because it has the connotation that "those people" don't carry groups with differing labels.
AB, in the interest of opening a positive dialouge between the races, I will also be demanding apologies for the following: - Stuart Scott - chicken & waffles - all of Eddie Murphy's movies since "Coming to America" - the term "bling-bling" Thanks in advance.
Yeah, I was pulled over the other day. The cop said it looked like I had two guns and a six pack. Thank you. Thank you bery much. Be sure to tip your waitress.
Along the same front, I have to aplogise to people with three names for making assumptions -- John Wilkes Booth John Wayne Gacy Lee Harvey Oswald James Earl Ray Mark David Chapman Mohamad Farrah Aideed --the list of three-named psychos goes on and on. I'll admit that I assumed that this guy'd have 3 names as well. I would like to extend a heart-felt apology to those three-named people out there like: Francis Ford Copolla Johan Sebastian Bach Alexander Graham Bell and Sandra Day O'Connor for any mental anguish I may have caused you. Thank You.
