Racial profiling?

The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

Some people here know that I live in somewhat of a ghetto. As such, I’m really one of the few white guys around here.

Well, I woke up this morning and went out for a pack of cigarettes. As I was going up this hill to my main street, a police car drove by me - somewhat of a regularity these days. Thankfully, the police have started really to patrol the area, and it’s helped immensely. Homeless people have started bunking up inside our buildings (I live in a complex of condominums) and sleeping on the stairs. Needless to say it’s kinda scary to walk out and see some guy sleeping on the stairs. Anyway, my neighbor has called the police a few times to have them removed.

Anyway, so I go inside this little grocery store place and get my cigarettes. I walk out and I’m tapping the top of the pack like I always do when this officer stops me. He tells me that he got a call on a suspicious looking white male, and that I was the only one he’d ever seen around here. I’ve lived on this block a long time, like 13 or so years, and I’m generally recognized as “that white kid who smokes”, because for the most part I go out to get a pack of cigarettes and that’s it. So this cop asks for my name and my birthdate and calls me in on his little radio thing. We just chill there for a little bit, asks me if I have any weapons, frisks me a little (feels on my pockets and lifts my shirt up), asks me what I was doing out, where I live, how long I’ve lived there, where I go to school, stuff like that. He commented that he’d never seen me around before, and that he didn’t see very many white guys around.

After he called me in we just sorta stood there for a bit. He asked me those questions, I complimented him for being around and that his presence was appreciated in the neighborhood, stuff like that, and he asked me if I was lying to him. I said no and he said thanks for the time and that I could go.

So I start back down this little path to main street. As I’m walking down this street the police car I saw earlier hits the breaks and stops a few yards behind me. I decide to just walk on home.

Now, he mentioned that I was one of the few white guys that he had seen, and said something about my neighbor calling in the homeless guys. As I was walking down the hill, I thought that maybe he thought I was a homeless guy, which didn’t really make sense - I had just washed my shoes (which were white and glared in the sunlight) and I was wearing a clean white t-shirt, which also glared in the sunlight. I didn’t really look homeless, although I had just woken up, but it also occured to me that since I was one of the only white guys around, maybe he had stopped me because of that? I’m not really sure, it’s kind of weird - I can see how it’s offensive, but for the most part I don’t really mind.

It was overall a kind of surreal expierence. Despite doing some of the things I do, I’ve never actually had to talk to a police officer about anything.

Anybody had similar expierences?

2

The only thing close to that was when I was with a friend at Pacific Mall, which is a really FOB mall in Markham. He’s white and I’m asian. We walk out of this store and the alarm goes off. The salesperson comes over to check our bags, while apologizing that she probably just forgot to demagnetize an item properly. She only checks his bag. Even though we both held them open.

3

Nessa would like to submit the following anecdote without tainting her lovely post count:

“Having lived most of my life in a 99% white bumpkin town, I can’t exactly claim that I’ve had experience with racial profiling, but I do have a cop story. Kinda. Anyway, this one time I was out late past curfew with my then-boyfriend, who was kinda an ass and insisted that we do all our “relationship talks” in the middle of the fucking night (one of the many reasons his ass got canned -.-), this time in the K-Mart parking lot. Anyway, during his dumb annoying whining, this cop dude pulls up behind where we were parked, and taps on the window. He asks the usual, who are you where you from crap, and the stupid stupid STUPID ex tried to make up some lame ass story about how we were traveling from Idaho (nevermind the OREGON PLATES, STUPID!). Finally he got some fucking sense, and started telling the truth, which is all I did in the first place (cuz I’m a good girl insert angelic smiley). And then the cop dude goes back to his car to do some stuff, I guess find out if we’re fugitives or some shit, and then he comes back and asks if my last name isn’t something else (I forget what). And I’m like, uh, yeah I’m pretty sure. And then he goes on to explain that this chick with my same first name and EXACT fucking date of birth was some runaway from Washington, and he thought maybe I was her, and I was like Aiee, no, not me _ And so like, he let us go pretty much, but said it’d be a good idea to do our dumbass one-sided whining elsewhere, cuz like, druggies hang out in the K-Mart parking lot, and we don’t want to get caught up in their stuff, blahblahblah.”

4

Sorc, that’s not racial profiling. Racial profiling is when black people are pulled over for traffic tickets more often than white people just because they’re black. That kind of thing. This was a specific tip about someone who “fit your description” - or rather, what little information they had on him was similar to you. If the tip was about a 40ish Chinese woman, they’d be stopping 40ish Chinese women instead.

5

I dunno if this is racial profiling, but I got hassled by three black men because I was wearing a bandana once.

6

You made a thread on that well over a year ago, did you think we forgot already?

<_<

7

That wasn’t well over a year ago :stuck_out_tongue: but very good TD, I’m glad you can remember what goes on in my life.

8

We all care, you’re female.

9

That’s not what he said Cid, he said that I was a suspicious looking white male. The only people I saw at all on that street were two police officers - one in a car, and the one that stopped me.

I know what racial profiling is (and it isn’t limited to traffic violations either).

10

Nothing but the usual scared old people.
You know, old shopkeepers that tend to want to double check your bag.

11

That isn’t racial profiling Sorc. He got a report that a white male around your age did something and since you said that you are one of the few white people in the area, you fit the description better than most people. It’d be the same thing if you had brown hair and were wearing a black t-shirt and they got a report of a whtie guy with brown hari wearing a black t-shirt doign something. You fit the description given. The key is that they were looking for a certain type of person and you matched the description. It isn’t racial profiling, it is just plain profling and they have a reason to profile, they were givena description. If they just did that and they were given no description and were just checking you out, then that would be wrong.

12

That reminds me of the one time I was walking around the mall covered in blood and carrying a chainsaw. security stopped me cuz i matched the description of the guy that was cutting up women in the bathrooms. boy, we had a good laugh after that whole schpiel was over. boy were their faces red.

13

You said that the cop said he’d had a call about a suspicious white male, which is why he was looking for one.

14

I meant a call, like over the radio. From another cop - you know, they have radios?

15

It’s the same thing. They were after a suspect and you fit the description fo the person that they were looking for. If they jsut did all that without being on the look for soemone, that’d be a problem, but they had probable cause to stop you.

16

Yeah man, i feel yah, cops can be real annoying, expecaly when your trying to commit felonys

17

Well, saying there’s a suspicious whatever in the area is called “an excuse to check you out.” It’s probably only racial profiling in the sense that, if its a bad neighborhood, and you dont look like you fit in (maybe your clothes were too clean), they may assume you are looking to get some drugs there.

I don’t think its technically racial profiliing, because racial profiling is basically stereotypes that are more likely to be true, based on actual data, not assumptions. It is a bit sad, but black people still have a higher poverty rate, and poor areas have higher cime rate, ergo, black people are more likely to be criminal. So they get pulled over/checked more often, etc.

Regardless, you looked out of place, in their opinion, and that was suspicious to them. It may be annoying, but its better than offcers that dont notice anything. And if it only took em 13 years to realize there is a white guy living in the neighborhood, some year you may get back that car that was stolen in '86 :slight_smile:

I am fortunate enough to live in a very nice area, where our “ghetto” consists of 100k+ homes. I wander around anywhere at 3am and have no trouble, though I do see cops around. Some people I know, however, tend o dress mroe sloppy than me, and cops always seem to have had a call of someone suspicious meeting their vague description.

18

Bloody embarrassed, no doubt.