Link to Archive of Weekly Issues Profiling: It's Personal.

Dear Habermas Logo and Link to Site Index A Justice Site

Micro/Macro
Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
Discussion Topics

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Soka University Japan, Transcend Art and Peace
Created: December 3, 2001
Latest Update: December 3, 2001
E-Mail Icon Faculty:
jeannecurran@habermas.org
Olivier at tapcourse@yahoo.com
takata@uwp.edu

Profiling: It's Personal

Journal entry by Denise Scurlock

Teaching and Review Essay by Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata.
Copyright: Jeanne Curran, Susan R. Takata, and Individual Authors: November 2001.
"Fair Use" encouraged.

Denise wrote the personal observation which follows as part of our discussion in sociology of law last week on profiling and the difficulty of maintaining balance in profile stops. Denise's story gives us an excellent picture of what it feels like to be stopped. It's not socially acceptable to ask "Did you stop me because I'm black?" but it runs through your mind, anyway.

Denise's account is very similar to Cynthia's. (Cynthia, you could summarize it for us.) Both these accounts are local narratives. The micro experience. Experience, up front and personal. What Crystal explained on Wednesday, November 28, 2001, was the need for us to look also at the macro perspective: the overall rates of violence in particular neighborhoods, the heightened stress since September 11, the extent to which police are targets under certain circumstances.

Remember the class discussion? Nnamdi and Martin were agreeing with Crystal, and trying also to agree with Cynthia. I have a feeling that Denise was agreeing with Cynthia, too, though she wasn't quite willing to tell us her story in class. Abel, well, as I recall, Abel was into fussing about colonization winning out through dominant discourse.

Remember the affect? Everybody was talking all at once. Separate groups broke into conversation all over the room. I had a hard time getting you back on track with theory. That's because at the local narrative level we're dealing with interpersonal relationships. It's not about "profiling" when the cop stops you. It's scary. It's personal. And it's scary and personal to the cop, too, until he/she can ascertain whether or not you are up to no good and a danger to him/her.

When is it about "profiling?" When we begin to reason out why we are each personally affected by the stop, what dangers there really are in a very up front and personal way to all of us actually involved. Only when we get past the micro prespective and begin to look at the overall social issues surrounding profiling, do we feel the reduction in affect that Edward T. Hall talks about when we are able to step back from the situation and consider not just our own experience, but experiences overall. That is, we are able to move to the technical level, away from the informal learning that makes up most of our experience.

The difficulty and affect we witnessed in our class discussion resulted from some of us interpreting the effects and meaning of profiling from the local narrative, micro perspective level of interdependent interpersonal relationships, and others of us interpreting profiling from the technical policy and social level of the issues of violence and violence prevention surrounding profiling on a national scope. We weren't really arguing with each other. There was little or no hostility. I heard Nnamdi several times assure Crystal that he understood her position. And I heard Crystal respond several times that she was not discounting the discomfort and fear that the profiling incident Cynthia described was disconcerting, but she was trying to remind us that we needed balance.

Now, does anyone remember Fellman's position on adversarialism? That we need to shift from compulsive adversarialism towards mutuality? Please notice how difficult such a shift is in real life, even when you're all basically on the same side, and not really disagreeing with each other. Notice that even when a macro argument is persuasive, it still leaves you with the discomfort of the micro argument. The one doesn't cause the other to disappear. Given September 11, and given our concerns with violence, there are no perfect solutions. We have to keep trying for what Fellman would call a paradigm shift that balances security needs and personal needs. Both are real. Both matter. But adversarialism has taught us to argue "Yes, but . . ." I think we might have to try, "Yes, and . . . " On a practical level, this is going to be difficult. Because when you're in the middle of a personal experience, it's hard to shift abruptly to overall demographics and social issues. But, amazingly enough, as I got us all back together, the tension dissipated, and we did manage to find a kind of paradigm shift. But it was hard to do, wasn't it?

On Monday, December 3, 2001, Denise Scurlock wrote:

Subject: Sociology of Law Discussion on Profiling Stops

Hi Jeanne. how are u doing? well, anyway i wanted to share something that we discussed in class about street law. my parents live in Walnut, California. it is mostly asian and white people. i was walking home. all of a sudden i heard a car burn rubber to make a u turn where i was walking. as i was walking, the police officer stopped me and asked me where i live. i said "down the street." and he said OK. Then i started walking.

Then, as i was walking, he was driving beside me, just looking at me, and he was saying some words to me, but i was ignoring him because i couldn't hear him. so he got to a corner and blocked me, so i couldn't walk. i was so scared i didn't know what to do. and then the police officer got out of the car and kept asking me unnecessary questions.

jeanne, i was so scared i didn't know what to do. I felt that he stopped me because i was black and i was walking in a nice neighborhood.

Discussion Topics

  1. Given my explanation of the macro/micro problem in communication and affect, could you respond with a "Yes, AND . . . " answer to Denise?

    Consider that the encounter for Denise was up front and personal. She was alone, and the story seemed to go with night time, even scarier. Consider that the policeman was also alone, and could have been scared. He also could have been racist and antagonistic. Denise hadn't heard much of what he said to her as he drove alongside her, so we can't know that. Neither could Denise.

    Consider also that had someone bothered Denise, he might have been there to help her. Ricky Jones, who was hit by a hit and run driver the other night, was outraged that the firemen stopped to help, but the police did not, and did not pursue the hit and run driver. Consider the complications behind the traditional "The policeman is our friend." Consider also the increased affect to the policeman because "The policeman is our friend" can no longer be taken for granted, by either the person stopped or the policeman.

    Consider what we have learned this semester about paradigm shifts, and how "awareness" and theoretical discussions helped quiet us down last Wednesday.