Download audio (MP3)  Racial profiling is about fear, says Paul
Staley, and leads us to assume things we don't know.  By Paul
Staley  We often act as if we possess super human clairvoyant
powers. A stranger crosses our path and all we need is a glimpse
of their appearance -- their clothes, their haircut -- and we
start assuming that we know what kind of person they are.    As
soon as we identify, the instantaneous reflex is to classify. We
are all profiling. We can't say what kind of person you are, but
we can say that you look like a certain type of person. And this
is not entirely groundless. To the extent that appearance
expresses preference, how somebody looks does say something
about them. We may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but
we can know where to file it.  This instinct becomes especially
problematic when people start making assumptions based on
factors such as skin color. What makes racial profiling so
dangerous is not merely that it is about race, but that the
impulse behind it runs so