Mac-Coleman

25 July 2013 –

Spatial, Not Racial

The Obama administration continues to promote the message that George Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin before killing him in self-defense.  After the verdict, the attorney general announced that his department would apply federal hate crime laws to determine if Trayvon Martin’s civil rights were violated, despite the fact that the FBI had already investigated the case and found no racial profiling or animus by George Zimmerman.  Then, the President interrupted a news conference to talk about how racial profiling continues to blight our society.  

Enough. 

Does racial profiling exist in our society?  Of course it does.  Do Americans regularly racially profile others in their daily dealings in society?  I would say no.    

I suggest that we Americans use spatial profiling, not racial profiling, throughout our day.  In other words, we form our responses to others largely based on the specifics of place and time.  We weigh the when, where, and why we are in particular situations.  We respond to those situations, and to those around us, particularly because of the stress or physical and emotional threat we may feel.  Many a women driver, for example, will position her car at a stop light to stay out of the field-of-view of those in the lane next to her.  Her reasons for doing so relate to her personal space, the amount of time that she is occupying that space, and her desire to limit interaction with people in other cars.  This benign example, executed countless times a day, fits all the criteria of spatial profiling.        

Past experiences in similar situations heavily influence our present spatial profiling.  If we are wise, we apply specific lessons-learned from our prior mistakes to better get through the present situation.  The truly wise even learn from others’ mistakes.   We weigh the odds of where the present situation will fall on a continuum ranging from satisfaction to stress to physical danger, and then we calculate our ability to escape and survive.  We weigh the variables of time, place, and space in all we do, but particularly when we are in unfamiliar circumstances. 

In his remarks this week, the President cited thread-bare examples of past stereotyping, which do not strongly indicate racial profiling in today’s society.  He mentioned the woman in the elevator who “clutches her purse” when a black man enters her space.  But, this white man often enters elevators where a woman is standing alone, and that woman, too, “clutches her purse.”  Why?  Because she spatially profiles the situation as well and “clutches her purse” because I am a man, not because of my race.  Sadly, there may be justification for women to “clutch their purses” when spatially profiling encounters with men in elevators; but, it has less to do with race than with being alone with the opposite sex.     

The President also said that people lock their cars when a black man is near.  I contend, however, that spatial profiling, not racial profiling, determines when and where most people lock their car doors.  In the elite environment of prep school, Ivy League universities, and community organizing—“before [he] was a senator”—he very well might have had other elites lock their car doors as they saw him, a young black man,  approach.    

But, most regular Americans, regardless of our skin color, make a habit of locking our car doors in all circumstances.  In fact, most new cars, based on auto-makers’ analyses of Americans’ spatial profiling, automatically lock all their doors when the transmission is put into drive.  As I mentioned above, we normal Americans immediately spatially profile situations when we drive into an unfamiliar location with unfamiliar people.  We often prudently hit the door-lock button and feel safer when we hear the click.  The skin color of those inside and outside our cars is much less important to us than the location of our cars. 

After working with people in dozens of other countries, I have seen that America is the least racist country on earth.  Tired examples of racism need to be thrown out.  They cloud accurate assessments of the level of racism in society and, just as important, they prevent us from gauging the real reasons we Americans make the decisions we do.