To Profile or to Profile? That is the Question.

I couldn’t imagine being a member of any police force in Arizona.  Just a few weeks have passed since the enacting of the immigration laws and already there have been dozens of claims of racial profiling.  As if law enforcement jobs aren’t difficult enough, citizens have taken it upon themselves (with CNN and other media outlet cameras behind them) to monitor these activities. Cops now need to triple check the race of the people they stop for simple traffic violations.  If they stop multiple Latino-Americans in a short period of time, regardless of their legitimate cause, they are going to be labeled as racial profilers.

By no means do I intend this to say that there aren’t a few officers who are profiling folks to pull over and detain.  What I am saying is that Arizona’s police force is composed overwhelmingly of good officers, some of whom inevitably will be accused of profiling, merely for doing their jobs the way they have for years, i.e., without regard for nationality or skin color.

So how is an officer to avoid the accusation of profiling? The answer is simple: by profiling. In some regions of the country we would call it reverse-profiling, because the officer would have to intentionally go against the grain of the majority bias, but for our sake, we will just call it profiling.

Avoiding profiling is a difficult task, especially since at its very roots, it is merely imperfect racism.  Think about it. Who could be an illegal immigrant? What does one look like?  If a police officer were to pull over a really tan white person, should that count as profiling or do they get a free pass? What about if there was an illegal alien of African descent? Would that “profiling”  be disregarded because “driving while black” has been around a lot longer than “driving while illegal” and therefore has become a part of reasonably overlooked southern culture?  What if they pull over and detain a legal Asian person? Would anyone care? Perhaps they should question white guys driving taco trucks?  I could go on and on and get dumber, but you get the point.

This issue doesn’t speak to the legality of a law as much as it speaks to the culture of the United States as a whole.  Yes, there are illegal immigrants in this country.  Yes, their hard work is a huge contribution to our country that half of our political leaders don’t want to recognize.  Yes, when our predominantly white ancestors came into this country they were also technically illegal aliens, but that same logic doesn’t apply to the land today.  And No, there should not have been a need to pass a law to enforce ANOTHER law that says that illegal immigrants (it’s right there in the phrase) are illegal.

When researching legislative history and proving intent, the courts sometimes turn to what was said by those passing the laws; whether that is in the press or on the floor of the legislature.  DO NOT lie to yourselves or others and say that when this law was debated that at least some of those who voted for it did not say that it was intended to keep Mexicans out of this country.  Elected officials on state levels aren’t all our future Thomas Jeffersons and Benjamin Franklins.  In fact in Maryland, there’s a delegate who was at one point charged with attempted murder or manslaughter of his family because he ALLEGEDLY drove his pickup truck through the front of their house when he was angry at them.

We as a country should only point fingers at ourselves for the issues that this law has created. We are faced with the concept of an original failed law and another law in an attempt to correct it; the conundrum of profiling or profiling to avoid profiling; our choice to elect some (I’m not saying all) of these “statesmen” who originally intended this bill to target the Latino population; and our enjoyment of the low cost of produce at the supermarket.  Arizona has some issues to tackle as a state in the coming months from which the country will surely learn. For now though, with all of the aspects involved, it is safe to say that this issue isn’t as simple as Black or White…

…and that bad puns are a terrible way to end an op-ed piece.

Tim Young