
Secret surveillance of ‘suspicious’ blacks in one of DC's poshest neighborhoods - kanamekun
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secret-surveillance-of-suspicious-blacks-in-one-of-the-nations-poshest-neighborhoods/2015/10/13/2e47236c-6c4d-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html
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matthewmcg
One of the shopkeepers quoted in the article: "Shoplifting has always been an
issue and as long as there’s stores, lower-income people are going to have a
higher tendency to steal."

Beyond the obvious offense of profiling, the danger of relying on stereotypes
is that they lead you to be suspicious of the wrong persons. According to a
large CDC study[1]: "Shoplifting occurred across all sociodemographic strata.
However, it was more common among those with higher education and income,
suggesting that financial considerations are unlikely to be the main motivator
for shoplifting in most cases. It was also more common among Native Americans
and non-Hispanic whites, possibly indicating a racial/cultural dimension not
previously documented."

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104590/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4104590/)

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hackuser
There are two more problems:

1) Most importantly, responsibility and justice must be on an individual
level: An individual has absolutely no responsibility for the actions of
others who happen share some characteristics with them. If I'm short, I'm not
responsible for what other short people do and shouldn't suffer any
consequences from it.

2) Profiling leads to many false-positive errors. Consider that even the
disparity is so large that 1% of group A and only 0.1% of group B is criminal:

* If your customers are 99% group B, you will see ~10 times as many group B criminals as group A.

* If you suspect everyone in group A, you'll be wrong and harassing innocent people 99% of the time.

The real problem, returning to my first point, is objectifying people: Seeing
them as merely threats to your store - like a 2-dimensional character in an
action movie - instead of real people with their own lives, feelings and
interests. It's much easier to do with people you are unfamiliar with, such as
other cultures, races, economic classes, etc.

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eli
I'm constantly surprised by the casual racism displayed on DC's ubiquitous
neighborhood mailing lists and discussion forums. But at this point maybe that
says more about me than my neighbors :/

Beyond the terrible impact of racism itself, I think racially profiling people
with dark skin is unlikely to address rising crime in a city that is majority
black.

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thehoff
I always thought of DC as such a multi-racial/ethnic town and that it would be
much more welcoming-to-all than it is.

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eli
I still think it's a good city and that the vast majority of residents are
good people... but yeah, there are definitely (still) racial issues beneath
the surface.

~~~
thehoff
Oh I didn't mean that it isn't. It's a great city but I've been caught off
balance with the sometimes blatant racism.

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msie
Comments concentrated by location == bad. See also: college, high-school chat
apps.

