Title has been shortened from the original:
Progressive Faith Leader Jim Wallis Issues Harsh Rebuke of Zimmerman Acquittal: ‘Racial Profiling Is a Sin in the Eyes of God’
Probably so, because he wouldn't have been indoctrinated into a thug culture that demanded he go after the "cracker." Of course, had be been white, he still could certainly have been a complete jackass and been just as stupid, but he wouldn't have had an entire culture based on his skin color egging him on.
He's also right about the case providing a window into an utterly segregated society - but what he fails to realise is that it is the constant emphasis placed on race by, amongst others, one Jim Wallis, which is exacerbating and deepening the divide.
Cool. As an atheist I’m free to profile everybody!
There is no such thing. It would be pointless and idiotic to ‘profile’ race. Race is assumed one of the most directly observable characteristics of a human – and generally, there would be no reason to construct a profile to predict or classify race. While it is true that some misclassification is present in the everyday typing of race by visible characteristics – for the most part no one needs to use a scorecard or profile to make a pretty good guess at race.
A profile is a tool, a template, a scorecard, against which to compare individuals and assess the probability that they are involved in something you want to scrutinize and interdict (drug smuggling, terrorism, etc.). It is not a perfect predictor – just an efficient screening device. To be minimally efficient it needs to be only slightly better than random chance assignment.
Before 9/11/2001 there was a need to screen air travelers and border crossers for drug courier activity. Hence, there were ‘drug courier profiles’ – models that aimed to sort out the mass of air travelers or border crossers and rank them on the probability that they were drug couriers. These models were based on actual experience of persons stopped in airports or at border crossing stations. You build a model with multiple variables (origin-destination pair, elapsed trip time, time at destination, method of payment, country of origin, number of days in advance of flight payment is made, etc.) which, taken together, form a predictive score than can be used to segment high probability (…of being a drug courier) from low probability.
The entire purpose of profiling is to focus limited police, border patrol, DEA or FBI (and now DHS and TSA) resources on those who are most likely to be drug couriers (or terrorists, or illegal aliens, etc.)
The use of the term ‘racial profiling’ has been an attempt by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et. al. to make an issue out of something that does not exist. It is really a very silly thing to assert that such a thing exists or is a serious issue. To allow the continual trafficking of such a false label in the major media without challenge is shameless.
If police were arbitrarily stopping individuals simply because they are black – they are not using a profile. And if they are using a properly constructed profile – they may be stopping black people – but not because they are black. Rather it would be because other observable characteristics were highly correlated with criminal behavior.
In lieu of statistical or neural network derived models – judgmental models have to do. A rational development of a judgmental model is accomplished by taking the common characteristics of known terrorists/criminals and generalizing them as characteristics in a model or scorecard to screen people for likely terrorists/criminals.
The ignorant reflex against "profiling" is just that. When Jesse Jackson walks down the street he is profiling. When he makes a selection from a display of produce at the grocery store he is profiling. When he helps select a college for his child to attend, they are profiling alternative schools. Which is to say, profiling is discrimination. Not invidious racial discrimination, but simply the process of making choices between alternative sets of products, assumptions, travel paths, etc., etc., etc. People do this all the time and to dumb down and devalue language by using the term profiling for something it is not is just stupid.
Who the hell is Jim Wallis and who cares? If anything Jim, your dissent is sinful because it is full of LIES!
heh. Nobody ever showed that racial profiling occurred in the Martin case.
Well isn’t he special?
At least the article doesn't call him a Christian. +1 for accuracy in reporting.
Race, he contended, was at the center of the incident from the start.
But since we can not convict Trayvon Martin for anything we only have one witness who was present at the shooting.
Although it is a case of self defense, was it necessary?
The case is closed, Trayvon Martin is dead, but could it have been handled different?
Why could,nt Zimmerman defend himself?
Was it because he had a hand in his pocket on the gun in which he did not really want to use and also did not think to let go of until the gun was the only defense left?
And what was he saying to get attacked in the first place?
We do not know that Trayvon Martin was up to anything except to exercise his freedom to walk where he pleased on a public road.
It is well established that Zimmerman was following him, any one would resent being followed even by the police.
I doubt if there is any one particular action that would have prevented this, but all any one has to do is to read of the police killings of people who did nothing for it to be justified.
So if there is any one thing, it would be police state mentality.
Race, he contended, was at the center of the incident from the start.
But since we can not convict Trayvon Martin for anything we only have one witness who was present at the shooting.
Although it is a case of self defense, was it necessary?
The case is closed, Trayvon Martin is dead, but could it have been handled different?
Why could,nt Zimmerman defend himself?
Was it because he had a hand in his pocket on the gun in which he did not really want to use and also did not think to let go of until the gun was the only defense left?
And what was he saying to get attacked in the first place?
We do not know that Trayvon Martin was up to anything except to exercise his freedom to walk where he pleased on a public road.
It is well established that Zimmerman was following him, any one would resent being followed even by the police.
I doubt if there is any one particular action that would have prevented this, but all any one has to do is to read of the police killings of people who did nothing for it to be justified.
So if there is any one thing, it would be police state mentality.
So, a people that judge Z to be racist because he is not black are not racists? Right. They are racists.
Not a single black person has come forward to denounce the killings of black people by black people are racist or even a problem. Over 1,100 blacks have been killed by other blacks since the Trayvon incident and not a peep about those killings.
Jim who?
The reaction to the Zimmerman verdict makes it clear that reinstating segregation needs to be looked at as a viable alternative to what is going on now in society.
It probably is true. And the reason that it's true, you moron, is that you're overlooking the inconvenient truth that your son Luke would likely not initiate a violent assault on a neighborhood watch volunteer who was just trying to do his job.
The lack of intellectual honesty and hysterical emotionalism exhibited by people such as Mr. Wallis is absolutely breathtaking. It requires willful ignorance to foment such profoundly clumsy propaganda.
This "writer's" piece is the epitome of sloppy, lazy thinking. When the facts don't fit the predetermined slant, idiots such as this simply ignore them or rewrite them.