to a point but the problem, as I see it, that making these decisions on the base of appearance is often wrong which is part of why real police don't do it, don't "profile" in that way.
For example, Columbine and trench coats. Turns out that media narrative was false. The "trench coat mafia" is a well known and popular idea but a complete misconception itself.
The Trench Coat Mafia was a nonviolent school group of computer gamers established a few years before the shooting, Cullen said. They feuded with the jocks and wore black trench coats. Harris and Klebold were not members, Cullen concluded after talking to students at the school and analyzing police documents. Neither boy appeared in the Trench Coat Mafia's yearbook group photo in 1998.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-20/justice/columbine.myths_1_trench-coat-mafia-columbine-high-school-school-shooting/3?_s=PM:CRIME
I guess my problem with all profiling is it really tells you little about the individual you are confronted with. I think profiling and making assumptions based on race, clothing is a fear based way to go about the world and, to me, can often lead you to make wrong conclusions about whether you are or aren't in actual danger as well as tend to overlook actual danger that doesn't look like you think it should.
I'd like to believe most of us could agree that GZ's conclusions that night were all pretty wrong and too easily influenced by surface appearance rather than actual criminal activity profiling. There's a difference between criminal profiling and racial profiling. Maybe I would be less critical of GZ if he had based any of his conclusions on real objective evidence of criminal intent like looking in windows, hiding behind bushes, checking doors and windows etc. But I seriously find all that he found "suspicious" about this boy to boil down to basically being he's a black boy walking in the rain with a hoodie and I don't personally know him. And, it's like he runs wild from there to "there's something wrong with him, on drugs or something, up to no good" because it all fits the narrative in had already constructed in his head and which I think we can agree was wrong.
Are we all subject to certain biases and prejudices? Sure, everyone makes judgments all day long. But I think many of us can recognize when it's based on a rational objectivity and when it's based on an irrational and perhaps erroneous assumption about an individual. Honestly, I hate tatoos, all of them, on anyone. I just do. I've learned though, that this "feeling" about tatoos needs to take into account the changing reality and I have been amazed by the type of people who end up having tatoos. But, I still tell my kids they'll never have tatoos while they live with me and they actually still dislike them too. But we keep our "feelings" about this personal attribute toned down and recognize that this is not some universal truth.
OK, have to go pick up Mexican and Chinese food for my guys who are watching final 4 b-ball. See ya later!:seeya::seeya:
I think the problem was that there were not a lot of teens outside walking around in hoodies or not. So he sees someone walking and he has never seen him before so he is going to check him out. Again, he is in his mind, a neighborhood watchman, so in his feeble mind, he is doing what he is supposed to do. I do not agree with his actions at all. I think he should have been arrested.
But to blame him for being suspicious of black teens is kind of unfair, imo. And my kids are both half black. But I am not going to pretend that there is no reason to be suspicious of a 6 ft 3 black kid walking at night in the neighborhood. There is a prominent and out of control culture which makes it seem cool to burglarize and jack cars and carry guns. And until these gangs are under control the people are going to be 'suspicious' of teens in hoodies.
