Why Racial Profiling Isn't Always a Bad Thing

Racial profiling has sort of ducked under the media radar again, but for a while, it was all over the news, in terms of crime fighting/prevention in Toronto, as well as the American war on terror. The concept of associating stereotypes to people based on their skin colour, religion, or any other physical characteristics seems to piss off a lot of people, especially those targeted. Young black men don't want to be pulled over by the police just because they are driving a fancy car. Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent don't want to have to face extra scrutiny at the airport. And their request for fairness seems, well, fair enough. We're a society that's supposed to be colour-blind when it comes to race.

However, call it "affirmative action" and suddenly, the people who are being stereotyped and profiled are suddenly onboard. Affirmative action is attaching a stereotype to a group of people based on their physical characteristics (e.g. that blacks are disadvantaged when it comes to higher education or getting jobs), and then targetting those people based on that assumption. They only difference is that the people that are being targeted are benefitting from the stereotype.

So, if you think affirmative action is a good thing, then racial profiling isn't always a bad thing.