Home · Articles · Columns · Your Negro Tour Guide · Cop Eye for
the Black Guy  Cop Eye for the Black Guy  By Kathy Y. Wilson ·
November 19th, 2003 · Your Negro Tour Guide People act like
racial profiling doesn't exist. Do the math. They act like cops
-- bad cops -- don't detain drivers based first on race and
then, while they're at it, rifle through the car for anything
worthy of adding us to the "just us" system.  Cops who profile
are hoping, just hoping, the broken taillight or the expired
registration or the brown skin in the wrong neighborhood
uncovers something. They're acting as though "can't we all just
get along" is some coon tune crooned by Emmett Till and not a
timeless jingo slurred by a punch-drunk Rodney King after the
1991 acquittal of the four L.A. cops who beat him down.  Racial
profiling weakens and demeans. It seduces us into believing the
hype of "they're all alike" because they assume we are. It's
thuggish.  Supposition of guilt based on race is dirty. It lends
further credence to the assu