Martin Luther King in his breathtaking speech, “I Have a Dream,” longed for a day when “the negro would not be judged by the color of his skin, but the content of his character.” How totally relevant to our society more than 50 years later! King knew his race's weakness back then and it was color, and was perhaps unknowingly predicting the race's weakness today, its character.
In these times of so called “racial profiling,” it is easy to say that the Trayvon Martin tragedy was about racial profiling. I would argue it is the character issue that Mr. King alluded to so elequently half a century ago.
If a particular race vastly disproportionately commits more violent crime, creates more unfathered babies, relies on hand outs and food stamps, steals/consumes and sells drugs, you tell me what is unfair about generalizing these facts to the character of the black male inAmerica. And, if in law enforcement, why on earth would it not be appropriate to go after those ‘characters’ that are more likely to harbor nefarious intent?
Perhaps a better term for ‘racial profiling’ would be ‘character profiling.’ Perhaps the best way to stop “profiling” is to stop the need to do so.
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