Randall Kennedy

Now, here we have, you know, in the weeds, we have people talking past one another.

I've been in conversations with police officers in debates, and we talk past one another because we are defining racial profiling very differently.

If you ask – I've been in conversations with police officers, and they say, oh, I'm totally against racial profiling.

And I say, well, you know, sir, what do you mean by racial profiling?

And here's what they say.

Racial profiling is when police officers act against somebody wholly on the basis of race.

That gets rid of the issue because, you know, most police officers don't act against anyone wholly on the basis of race.

you could have the most racist police officer, and that police officer is not going to act adversely against the 90-year-old black woman walking down the street with a cane, okay?

So it's all, you know, if you define racial profiling that way, you're getting rid of the issue.

The issue is, the proper issue is this.

Should the police be able to act against someone taking race into account as a factor?

So let's imagine that a black person who's 25 years old is walking down the street right next to a white person who's 25 years old.

some people would say, you know what?

Under those circumstances, it's okay for the police officer to give two looks at the black person and only one look at the white person.

Why?

Because the statistics tell us that the black 25-year-old, there's much more risk of that person acting in an unlawful way.

If you take a look at

you know, crime statistics and ask the question with respect to, you know, homicide, with respect to robbery, with respect to various, you know, crimes.

Is there a difference between the white 25-year-old and the black 25-year-old?

With respect to certain crimes, the answer is, in certain places, the answer is, yeah, there is a difference.