The University of Minnesota, in order to minimize racial profiling, will no longer include race as the primary identifier of a perpetrator.
University of Minnesota police will stop sending out what they consider vague descriptions of suspects in campus crime alerts after criticism that authorities sometimes release racial descriptions and little other concrete information.
From now on, the campuswide bulletins triggered by serious crimes such as robbery and aggravated assault will only include the suspect’s description “when there is sufficient detail that would help identify a specific individual or group,” U Vice President Pamela Wheelock said Wednesday in an e-mail to students, faculty and staff.
The announcement came after a series of student-led protests on the issue and marks a significant step for a university dealing with tension over the racial climate on campus, an issue that has reverberated at colleges and universities across the country in recent months.
Of course the network who has a rich history of vituperative racial-stereotyping isn't too pleased that their perceived lack of descriptive power can be applied. The side of reason today was David Schwartz, while the outraged proponent of racial profiling was Jonna Spilbor. Schwartz defended the new measure saying,
"What happens is, if a call comes out for a Black male, a White woman, an Asian female that's not really helping police find the perpetrator of a crime, you need other identifying features."
He explained that first another identifier can be named such as the color shoes, a tattoo, THEN you may add the race of the perp. So honestly, the race can be included in the description, it just cannot be the ONLY characteristic named.
Jonna Spilbor and Clayton Morris, the host, were just baffled beyond words. Spilbor said,
"The one immutable quality that any of us has is our race. How can you say, be on the lookout for a HUMAN that has committed a crime?"
Schwartz interjected and said you can still add race as long as their are other features listed first, so black males (primarily) are not racially profiled as much as they normally are. Morris asked the two attorneys if this is going to handicap authorities. As Schwartz mentioned, along with the statement issued by the university, race will not be omitted entirely. It just won't be the first characteristic mentioned. Spilbor was still outraged. "You can't take out race just because you're trying to be politically correct."
They showed these two graphics. 
When Schwartz repeated, Black male twice, Spilbor did not see how that could be discriminatory. She asked who would be offended by this? Would it be the criminals? Schwartz tried to emphasize that when you identify with an entire class of people, you need to have another identifier because just mentioning the race creates another problem of over-generalization which puts more innocent people at risk. In other words, racial profiling has had dire consequences.
Schwartz does a good job explaining how cross-racial identification is a big problem in our society, but of course, the racist-in-denial was not having any of that. The ONLY thing that matters is RACE. Trying to get her to think anything to the contrary is as likely as O'Reilly admitting he lied, and apologizing for his misconduct.
