Defense against Profiling?

Posted by Cheryl Baumgartner
12
Nov 24, 2007
1679 Views
I want to talk to you about Profiling.  Many of you have heard of it and some of you may have experienced it, like me.  Quite simply put, profiling is a form of police prejudice.  It is the assumption that some groups are more likely to commit crimes or in some other way break or bend the law.  It is also a form of harassment.  The most widely known type of profiling is racial profiling.

Racial Profiling(Driving while Black, also Hispanic, Asian, or any other minority group)
This type of profiling is based on ethnicity.  Police will target black citizens for traffic stops and searches for no other reason than that they are black.  I experienced this type of profiling first-hand in Beaumont, TX.  My mother and I were traveling from San Antonio back to Florida after dropping my daughter off to spend the summer with my sister.  All of a sudden I find myself being pulled over.  What should have been a routine traffic stop ended up with me being removed from the car and questioned by one officer while my mother in the car was being questioned by his partner.  We were in my mother's car (an older Delta 88) with Florida plates.  Although they did not say it, they pulled us over because we were black, driving am ordinary car with Florida plates on Interstate 10.  Because of that criteria they thought there was a possibility that we were running drugs.  Of course they "gave me a reason" for the stop.  When they pulled out so suddenly behind me, I thought perhaps they had gotten a call and moved over to the right behind a panel van.  Their excuse was that I was too close to the van.  My mother however did not take kindly to their actions and told them that I worked for a police department at which time they immediately released us.

Gender Profiling(Driving while female)
Yes ladies this happens also.  Female drivers are bad drivers or they want to get your information.  Officers have been known to pull women over for no other reason than being female.  This can be very upsetting at night when you are alone in your vehicle.  After 12 years of dealing with police officers I can tell you that the majority want to do the job to the best of their ability, but there is that minority of bad cops.

Age Profiling (Driving while a teen)
Teenagers are targeted almost as often as minorities.  Kids out at night just have to be up to no good.  They are scoring drugs, committing vandalism etc.  This type of profiling can cause young people to develop a hatred for police.

Your car doesn't fit the neighborhood
If you are driving a clunker in an affluent neighborhood they will assume you are looking for a house to burglarize, but if you are driving a nice car in a poor neighborhood you must be selling drugs.

From experience I can tell you that being profiled is a violation.  Being judged in this manner causes an emotional response,  anger, confusion, fear of it happening again.  Most importantly it makes you feel like you have no rights.  This is an issue that PrePaid Legal Services addresses.  The Legal Shield Card invokes your Miranda rights and gives you 24 hour access to an attorney when you need it.  You have an attorney to advise you when that officer wants to subject you to a search without probable cause.  You don't have to worry about being profiled again.




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Comments (39)
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Rio Guzman
6

Writer

Nice blog Cheryl...and good comments!

Nov 26, 2007 Like it
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Cheryl Baumgartner
12

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance

There will always be narrow-minded idiots in the world. That does mot mean that anyone of us has to acknowledge their pea-brained ideas or give them credence. Perhaps I am so passionate about the tendency to accept it is because I was taught not to accept it. Both my brother and sister experienced something I was blessed not to have to go through, the segregated school system. My mother and grandparents and my siblings all drummed it into my head that I had been given a chance. And that if

Nov 26, 2007 Like it
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Jenny Stewart
11

You have said a lot in one sentence Cheryl

"But when a person lives up to someone else's opinion of them, let's someone else dictate the position they occupy and basically accept the status quo as being reality, that person has given the racist the power over their life and their future. The racist has won."

This applies to any kind of racism or sexism. That does not mean by a long shot that you are going to stop racism or sexism or any other ism by refusing to cooperate with what is expect

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Cheryl Baumgartner
12

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance

Yes there are racists still living in America. But when a person lives up to someone else's opinion of them, let's someone else dictate the position they occupy and basically accept the status quo as being reality, that person has given the racist the power over their life and their future. The racist has won.

The best revenge against racist is in NOT accepting that racists power. In NOT allowing that racist to keep you at a certain level and in proving them wrong. As long as blacks continu

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Cheryl Baumgartner
12

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance

I haven't seen that film, I'll have to look for it. And I think it is appropriate to interject with a quote from my Grandmother. "Never judge anyone by the outside. You limit yourself and your potential. No one reaches their potential by themselves but by the way we relate to others. Let others be small-minded. You look beyond the surface to a person's soul then decide if that person is someone you want to be associated with or someone that does not fit in your life."

She was a wise old g

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Jenny Stewart
11

Hi Cheryl and Jeunelle

We seem to be having three way conversation on this blog - although I see that there are many others reading the content (which is as important as posting in my book)

Yoy know, I was rereading the posts just now and it reminded me of a film I saw.

Have you seen Crash? It said a lot.

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Cheryl Baumgartner
12

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance

Many of the so called poor blacks can drive new cars, have cable, and plenty of bling but they can't afford a lawyer. In most of the cases I deal with, the priorities are skewed. They can spend $200 a month on the hair and nails but won't shell out as little as $17 a month to protect their rights.

And yes you hear about the bad cops on the TV all the time. That's because it is "news". The majority of officers who are out there doing the job and actually upholding the law never get reported

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Jenny Stewart
11

Hi Cheryl,

Great blog and some wise words there. Profiling of stereotypes is a horrifying habit all over the world . It appears to have gone to great extremes in the States, but sounds very familiar if you are looking at the history of the Spanish dictatorship under Franco.

There is a saying "if you tell me whose company you keep, I'll tell you who you are" It is all about putting labels on people and then judging them on those labels. And it is often WRONG. Whether it is race or reli

Nov 25, 2007 Like it
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Cheryl Baumgartner
12

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance

Like any other group, the bad cops are the minority they however are the one's that get the press. Most blacks aren't thugs and gangbangers how ever the thugs and gandbangers get the press. The press does more to foster hatred and distrust than all the bad cops and gangbangers combined because we believe what Connie Chung tells us.

We also have many blacks that still cling to the victim mentality. I've seen blacks that automatically become defensive when police are within 100 feet of them.

Nov 24, 2007 Like it
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