Why it was right to think the sniper was a white male.
Glenn Reynolds and other right-wingers were quite peeved after it turned out that the sniper, or, neither of them, was not a white male. He charged the supposedly biased media with inventing the myth of the angry white male shooter. (*) (†) This was criticism without merit. Reynolds forgot all about Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, white male, who, in 1999, went on a multi-day shooting spree against minorities and Jews in Illinois and Indiana, leaving three dead and many others wounded. (‡) As CNN reported, “A specific motive for Smith’s three-day shooting spree has not been determined, but the 21-year-old had well-known racist views.” (§) (**) On the basis of this incident, it was natural to think that the recent snipings in the Washington, DC area were carried out by a racist white male with a gun. That had been the case of Benjamin Nathaniel Smith.
Reynolds and other conservatives should issue corrections. I frankly doubt they will, however.
Last updated: 12 February 2003. Phrasing.
December 6th, 2002 at 14:06
I find it interesting how liberals who are against any kind of racial (ie, blacks, muslims,etc…) profiling were quick to profile this person as a white male.
December 10th, 2002 at 22:49
A fair point, but let me stress the difference between racial profiling and good investigative work.
When automobiles driven by black men are stopped by police officers in numbers substantially disproportionate to the number of traffic violations committed by black men, then that could be indicative of a policing strategy that is misguided. It would likely be advantageous to law enforcement to make traffic stops on better criteria than those that give undue weight to race.
On the other hand, in the sniper case, it was clear that very serious crimes were being committed by someone or some group. At this point, law enforcement officers engage in a technique called suspect profiling. At this point, it is entirely justified to use all available means to draw out the personal characteristics of the suspect, so that he may be identified and arrested.
The difference is between choosing which minor criminal offenses to crack down on, in the case of racial profiling, and in finding and stopping a murderer. So, I think you have a valid point, but by drawing these hopefully fine distinctions I aim to persuade that there is justification in the apparent discrepancy.