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appreciate Roger Clegg's taking the trouble to read my article "In
Defense of Racial Profiling" in the print National
Review, and his thoughtful response to it. The editor suggested
posting Mr.
Clegg's response on our website, followed by my comments about
it. I was very glad to agree to this. This is an important issue,
and there can never be enough calm, reasoned debate about it. There
can, of course, very soon be enough — there is already way
too much! — yelling, posturing, and intimidating about racial
profiling, and other race issues.
Mr. Clegg rests his main case on Randall Kennedy's argument that
racial profiling, though reasonable, is immoral and socially inflammatory.
So would I have done: Kennedy's piece is brilliant. I did not have
space to do justice to it in my print article, and have not here
either, so I urge anyone interested in this subject to seek out
the essay and
read it for himself. I do not see how a better case against
racial profiling can be made, and anyone who wants to defend the
practice, as I do, must show why Prof. Kennedy is wrong. Where arguments
against racial profiling are concerned, Kennedy is the gold standard.
Unless you are an adherent of one of the more demanding religious
confessions, the essence of moral wrong — the lowest common-denominator
essence, I mean, that all modern people can agree on — is the
wish to harm, or at the very least to vex, somebody else. That is
really what underlies the case against racial profiling: The conviction
that policemen who preferentially detain black people do so because
they bear ill will towards the black race. They want to keep
us down, the way they used to. Racial profiling is a manifestation
of white racism — that is the heart of the matter.
I had better say right now — Mr. Clegg might want to sit down
for this one — that I do not believe in white racism, except
as a fringe phenomenon at the very bottom of society. Yes, white
Americans used to keep black Americans down,
| “I
do not believe in white racism, except as a fringe phenomenon
at the very bottom of society.” |
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though
this should never be said without noting that very large numbers
of white Americans were always unhappy with the arrangement. That,
however, was then, and this is now. Like promiscuous smoking, though
much more effectively and thoroughly, the malice that many white
people felt toward blacks has been almost shamed out of existence
in the past 40 years. I have been living in the United States for
15 of those years, mainly among white Americans. I have known several
hundred white Americans, of all ages and classes (and including
a handful of policemen), well enough to say confidently that I don't
believe a single one of them bore any ill will towards black people.
The following statement is true, as best I can judge, of every white
American I have ever known: He would be happier in himself, and
would feel better about his country, if the statistical profiles
of black American lives and behaviors were identical with those
of whites. The fact that they are not, is distressing to everybody
I know, though of course in very varying degrees.
There are many opinions about the reasons for those statistical
differences. Quite a lot of white Americans, unlike me, believe
in the reality of white racism as a major social force. Many, on
the other hand — a fast-growing number, it seems to me —
believe that there is some deep, intractable, and presumably biological
reason why persons of West African descent or part-descent do not
(statistically speaking) do well in our society. Whatever you might
think of this belief, I can tell you for sure that when it fixes
itself on a white person's mind, it does not induce glee: Great!
This means we'll be able to keep them down for ever, the way we
used to! What it induces is despair: Oh God, we're stuck
with this damn race thing for ever! White Americans do not want
a race-divided society. There is hardly anything they want less.
Suppose I am right — as, of course, I think I am — in
believing that white racism is a vanishingly insignificant phenomenon
in current American life. What then happens to Randall Kennedy's
argument from morality? It seems to me that it collapses, for it
is based on the belief that without enforced, supervised restraints,
the racism of white policemen will bubble up irresistibly, causing
them to commit wrongs against black people. If that racism does
not exist, except very occasionally, how can the restraints be justified,
when their effect would be, as Kennedy admits (while, as I argued
in my print piece, seriously under-estimating this effect) socially
negative? If white policemen pulling over black motorists mean no
harm, and restraints on them doing so will greatly increase crime
— a very harmful thing to its victims — where is the point
of moral balance? Kennedy suggests we restore that balance by hiring
more policemen. This does not sound to me very sincere, or very
convincing.
But what about "socially inflammatory"? Even if policemen are not
acting immorally in preferentially detaining black people, is the
anger and resentment of black people worth it? That's a big social
negative by itself, isn't it? Yes it is, but I don't see what we
can honestly do about it, other than keep trying to show that police
procedures are reasonable, and correcting them if they are not.
If a reasonable and useful policy makes people unreasonably angry,
I personally would stick with the policy and work on the people….
Though, reading back over that last sentence, I do see that is the
kind of assertion that might cause a professional politician to
double over laughing.
And where the police have not been reasonable, where there
has been a real injustice — where it can be shown that a person
has been inconvenienced for no other reason than his race
— current laws already provide sufficient remedy. Certainly
our citizens seem to believe they do: They are suing police departments
for racial profiling malfeasances left, right, and center. Let me
introduce you to Mr. Robert Hluchan, for example, a white driver
pulled over in a black neighborhood of Philadelphia and made to
stand handcuffed for 20 minutes while cops strip-searched his BMW.
He has filed a lawsuit against that city for racial profiling. The
police thought he was cruising for drugs; in fact he was visiting
his girlfriend, who is black.
There is much more to say about this. I personally have much, much
more. My first draft of this rejoinder went to 3,000 words, but
the webmaster threatened to resign and I had to cut it to 1,000.
I hope to come back to the issue in a future web column: I hope
NRO will publish more dissents by Roger Clegg and anyone else who
has a contribution and can express himself with Mr. Clegg's clarity
and fluency. I started out my print piece by calling racial profiling
"a shibboleth of our time." I don't like shibboleths. If we can
debate this stuff frankly and sensibly, without posturing, self-righteousness,
moral blackmail, and bogus displays of indignation, then whatever
we collectively decide to do about this issue, at least we shall
be one shibboleth the less.
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