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Comment by vph | Hacker News Reader

The author hypothesis is that criminal profiling is based on race. A simpler hypothesis is that such profiling is based on looks. Now, instead of wearing suits, if he wears baggy jeans that almost fall off his butt, puts on a few tatoos, nose rings to match, and starts doing seemingly illegal things. And if the cops still don't stop him, then maybe being white has something to do with it.

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I have two middle-class white friends who have told me that they were busted by the police for dealing cocaine (when they were young - before I knew them - SoL has expired), had their stash confiscated, and told not to do it again. And let go - scot-free. Two independent incidents.

This small experiment doesn't have a control, but I believe that black drug dealers are given more than a mild verbal rebuke. In NYC, you can't even walk down the street while black.

> In NYC, you can't even walk down the street while black.

Where I used to work, in Chelsea, I used to see a trio of policemen frisking and/or questioning a different young, black man or woman at the entrance to the subway three out of the five days in the week.

Chelsea is a fairly wealthy (and white) neighborhood. Go out to East New York, and you'll see much worse.

Allowing people to discriminate based on cultural markers like baggy jeans instead of skin color is creating a loophole. It's analogous to the voter disenfranchisement laws after the civil war. You can say that you're not barring black people from voting, that you're only barring people who fail a literacy test. But if the effect is that you mostly ban black people, then it's a de facto racial discrimination.

We're talking about a culture that esteems criminality - that jeans style is prison fashion. People don't get to choose their skin colour, but they do choose what they wear (and no, you don't need a $2000 suit to avoid police harassment, a $20 one will do just as well).

If you have to wear a business suit to avoid police harrassment then your society is fucked. And large sections of society adopting prison fashions doesn't tell you that those people are all criminal, it tells you that your society jails too many people.

Throughout the course of our lives, we have to make decisions based on "rules of thumbs". Cops have to make decisions based on "profiles" determined by such rules of thumbs based on statistics, experience and sometime hunches. Detective, investigative works have been based on profiling for ages. Call it data mining if you will. Clearly, if such profiling is based strictly & exclusively on race, then it is racist and perhaps stupid and ineffective as well. And the US history has witnessed a fair share of racial issues. Nevertheless, the content of this article appears to be race baiting, not honestly examining the issue of "stop and frisk".

> Now, instead of wearing suits, if he wears baggy jeans that almost fall off his butt, puts on a few tatoos, nose rings to match, and starts doing seemingly illegal things.

Even among those that dress this way, the stop and frisk profiling still overwhelmingly targets black and hispanic people. Tattoos, piercings, and casual wear are extremely common in NYC, far more than suits, esp. in Brooklyn.

A simpler hypothesis is that such profiling is based on looks.

Are you trying to argue that the colour of your skin is not a factor in the perception of your appearance?

Surely, the color of skin is part of looks. How much is it? I don't know. But it is naive to say that skin color is the only thing.

Who argued it’s the only thing?

You are admitting here that you think it’s plausible that the police profile based on race (i.e. they are racist). That they also look at other things isn’t really surprising (but should nevertheless not be left unquestioned).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're white. (Or at least, you're not black or Hispanic.) How'd I do?

[I strongly question whether "based on looks" is a simpler hypothesis than "based on race", by the way. Given the long, well-documented history of racial discrimination in the US, I might actually lean in the opposite direction.]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you're white. (Or at least, you're not black or Hispanic.) How'd I do?

How is that relevant to his point?

>How'd I do?

You are wrong.

I would agree with the fashion profiling argument, but I had a (black) friend arrested on his way to a job interview in a suit for switching subway cars. The only reason he switched the subway cars was due to a homeless person smelling up the car he was in. Pretty sure if he was a white male he would not have been arrested.

For switching subway cars? How's that a crime? He paid for the ride didn't he? Or do the people of color are still only allowed to ride in the back on the subway?

it is illegal to switch from one car to another car (regardless if the train is in motion or not). that's a crime/fact, in NYC of course.

Is that a joke? Why would anyone vote to make that a crime?

I through that three felonies a day is an exageration, but I'm definitely guilty of switching train cars.

http://www.mta.info/nyct/rules/rules.htm#restricted

See Section 1050.9 (d)

Because kids in teh suburbs don't wear baggy jeans and hoodies. Wait, what?

Your argument would have some merit if statistically the legal system hadn't been proven racist in pretty much every aspect over and over again. The ACLU has put it all together better than I can.

https://www.aclu.org/racial-justice

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