Ian Millhiser: "Tuesday’s column, by columnist Kathleen Parker, is narrower in scope than Monday’s piece by Richard Cohen. Cohen defended New York City’s stop-and-frisk program because it engaged in racial profiling. Parker suggests that Zimmerman decision to target the African American Martin was “right within his . . . own experience” because “[i]t has been established that several burglaries in Zimmerman’s neighborhood primarily involved young black males.” Yet she quickly takes this claim and inflates it into a broader defense of racial stereotyping — “if we are honest, we know that human nature includes the accumulation of evolved biases based on experience and survival. In the courtroom, it’s called profiling. In the real world, it’s called common sense.” Both columnists’ defenses of racial profiling rely on a very basic statistical error. As Matt Yglesias explained on Tuesday, it’s probably true that Jewish men are over-represented in the field of political commentary. Yet, if you met a man on the street who identified himself as Jewish, it would be ridiculous to assume that he must be a pundit. Similarly, while the investment bankers who played such a central role in 2008′s near-collapse of the global economy almost certainly consisted mostly of white men, it would be absurd for financial regulators to assume that they should give special scrutiny to certain bankers simply because they are white. It is just as absurd to target the overwhelming majority of young black men who do not engage in violent crime because of fears arising from the small minority who do."
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 07:34:06 +0000
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