THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701040019
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: ANN SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: 78 lines
Last week I shared my experience as a robbery victim and looked at the ``context'' of two recent ``random'' crimes, including an abduction/robbery at a Virginia Beach automated teller machine, asking who could have prevented them. The victim? The police? The owner of the premises where the crime occurred?
Last week, I left out a ``fact'' that would have taken the discussion in a different direction, the one I take today.
The two young men who mugged me were black.
I had noticed the two men, in their early 20s, upon my arrival at the downtown Baltimore mall. Lingering beside a stairwell off of a skywalk, they had seemed ``suspicious.'' But why? I had asked myself. Is it because they're black? Not all young, black men are criminals, Ann. I feared I was being racist. But maybe I was just being cautiously observant.
Was I prejudging because of racial stereotype? And if I was prejudging, was it appropriate to do so?
Dinesh D'Souza, author of The End of Racism, would validate my prejudgment as ``rational discrimination'' and say I prudently perceived these young, black men as a threat because young, black men commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes. The numbers support the stereotype.
Prejudices don't always reflect ignorance, D'Souza would say. Sometimes they reflect prudent judgment.
I've thought a lot about this since I was mugged 13 years ago. D'Souza's facile reasoning is seductive. Like playing the odds.
But the veneer of ``prudency'' can and should be cracked.
In the criminal context, it deceptively focuses on the wrong group - on African Americans, instead of on criminals - encouraging fear of the former rather than the latter. ``Rational'' discrimination obscures more reliable indicators of criminality and lulls people into a false sense of security - or insecurity.
Race doesn't cause crime.
And yet, there are many white people who, upon hearing about a violent, ``random'' crime, immediately ask about the perpetrator, ``Was he black?'' When told yes, they nod knowingly, ``It figures.'' And feel safer. They then let down their guard ``among their own.''
The 18-year-old armed robber at the Virginia Beach ATM was white, as was his victim.
If a robber is poor, illiterate, unemployed, addicted to crack; the product of abuse or neglect or emotional deprivation; or otherwise a hopeless member of the underclass, then maybe ``it figures.'' A criminal profile is not difficult to compile. But we potential victims can't know these details; all we can figure is the immediate context. To be safe, we should suspect everyone. Black or white. We shouldn't be playing race-tinged odds. And we shouldn't be calling such games rational.
D'Souza has written provocatively of the ``racist cabbie,'' often African-American himself, who passes up a late-night fare with a young, black man for fear of being assaulted. These cab drivers say they don't bypass all black people - women and old people get lifts. They're not racist, they insist, just smart. They don't want a gun in their face.
OK, so what kind of black fares do they shun? From what I gather, young men, shabbily dressed, slovenly or otherwise ``suspicious'' in appearance, who hail cabs from poor inner-city neighborhoods. In other words, fares who, white or black, would seem a bad risk. Certainly whites fitting the profile except for race could rob a cabbie blind. So why focus on race?
Because it's easy. And people don't want to think.
I was robbed because I failed to ask what, apart from skin color, made the two men on the skywalk stand out. I ignored clues of demeanor, behavior and situation. I didn't ask why these guys were hanging around where they were.
In the days after the robbery, I found that I didn't cross the street whenever a black man approached, clutching my purse, demonstrating further ``rational'' behavior. I flinched whenever any man passed me. Youth and maleness, especially in groups, and regardless of color, put me on the alert. Still do.
Besides unfairly indicting an entire racial group, rational discrimination is a dangerous concept in crime prevention. Especially for women. No one is above notice and scrutiny. No one. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma, an attorney, is an editorial columnist and book
editor for The Virginian-Pilot.