Profiling - It’s a Tool!

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In a recent news story on a local radio station a comment was made on the profiling used by humans, it was directed connected to the identification of situations and people by the term, “Minorities,” with emphasis toward the African-American minority. I have issues with this because it smacks of an agenda driven emotionally charged focus on just one person/group. 

First, lets look at the definition: “(noun), the recording and analysis of a person's psychological and behavioral characteristics, so as to assess or predict their capabilities in a certain sphere or to assist in identifying a particular subgroup of people.” 

They use the word, ‘person and people,’ and I don’t see anything there that directs someone to either a minority nor the African-Americans. It does refer to a particular psychological and behavior characteristic. In my mind if someone is inclined toward conflict, violence and law-breaking activities and presents a particular look or set of actions then those are the psych and behavioral symbols that if they span a larger group and become indicative of, say, criminal activity then they should be used to find and defend against less than honorable folks regardless of  race, religion or gender, etc.

Note: Profiling works on both the criminal and non-criminal world, it works on ALL HUMANS. To make the act of profiling illegal simply because when said and done it points to a particular subgroup of people is ludicrous. It takes what is a very important human survival tool and makes it a tool of the legal system to prosecute something and someone merely because it may, might or could be racially/minority motivated. In this, I believe we are all making the assumption of the connection due to the outcry of those who have some agenda and cannot explain or find the facts of truth that say this is not minority motivated. 

Profiling is a great tool for humans to assess and predict especially regarding self-defense. I am not saying that simply because one has a certain pigment to their skin that it means danger but rather to profile someone who stands out in a certain way and then presents several characteristics through words, actions and “tells of criminal intent” means to turn and run to avoid, to use tools toward control and deescalation or if not other methods are available then act accordingly. 

In Marc MacYoungs’ and Rory Miller’s books on conflict and violence they mention culture and beliefs but don’t assign them a label that would take a particular person or group - minority or not - and give the impression that all their work is about minorities, it is about conflict and violence and how to handle it all. 

Profiling is a human tool because it is exactly what we use to identify stimuli, trigger the appropriate and legal responses and then do what is necessary to get-r-done. 

Now, to the actual reference to minorities. It is regrettable but often true that when profiling you find certain groups to live and work in such activities that often are about predatory actions toward resource acquisition or process gratification. If the profile fits the person then their color, religion or culture/cultural belief system doesn’t matter and to use that to misdirect and get someone out of the ramifications is simply that, misdirection in the hopes of getting away with it. 

Even if I use profiling and the first indicator or tell is their minority status then it is my responsibility to determine using other indicators to validate that assessment to make sure my prediction is accurate. One of the ways our society ensures that I made the right choice is when the legal system and the authorities see readily that I remained within the confines of the law, the legal system and the morally justifications of our society. 

I am walking in the woods enjoying nature; out of the corner of my eye I see a shape that is slender, long and shaped like an “S”; My mind profiles the stimuli and my mind and body will trigger the survival system of “Freeze, Flight and Fight,” i.e., My eyes will go wide, I will take in a deep breath, I will more often than not jump back and then assess, predict and act accordingly to the profiling data. My mind took the stimuli and associated it with - “Snake!” - but once I take stock of additional tells and data and information I realize it was just, - “A Stick!” But, hey, the way this all works would mean that I was prejudicial to the stick and the snake, they are minorities of the world we call nature so I must have profiled them as snakes and through actions that could have become grave to the snake took prejudicial actions thinking that I was protecting myself. 

So, do I believe profiling is about minorities? No, profiling, especially as a tool of our professionals be they police, corrections officers, military or security, is absolutely necessary not just for them but for all of us in our need to survive. 

The argument will be made that survival is not on the table in modern society as we are safer than at any other time in history but that is not true of our minds. Our minds when triggering certain sub-routines, call it instinctual survival tapes, the mind says, “Danger, death is on the table,” and that is how it works regardless of whether it involves actual violence or just a heated argument or some aggression at work between you and the boss. The lizard has not evolved enough to take the death trigger off the table.

The last part of the definition on profiling is, “Identifying a particular subgroup of people.” It does not say that it is about identifying a particular minority subgroup of people or a particular religious faction subgroup of people BUT IT DOES means to identify a particular subgroup of people that are a danger to our society, tribe, clan or families and if they happen to be of a minority group there is more reasons then merely the color of their skin that says it is so. 

In order for certain groups to satisfy and gratify their emotional immature reactions toward a person who being of the same heritage, culture and/or group will take the very first singular atomistic piece of information the supports and validates, not necessarily true or factual, their feelings and they will use that as a tool, a club, to beat, argue, spit, bug out the eyes, swears, used psychological/verbal violence, waves their arms, screams in your face to get us to believe that things or tools like ‘profiling’ are bad and are about them rather than what they are about, reality - the reality of crime, violence and conflict!

Profiling is a good thing, it is a tool and because of its usefulness of species/human survival it is absolutely necessary and valid. Like compliance professionals who use the principles of influence to get you to keep them in high status economic viability, the BMW and Mansion thing, these principles/profiling can be used by nefarious predator adversarial people in ways that make for bad things happening. 

Yes, profiling can be used toward a specific subgroup of people if used incorrectly and yet it works more often when used to simply identify and stop criminal activities that would put societies people in harms way. 

Now, for the final reality check - police, military and other such professions and professionals use profiling all the time. What they had to do to overcome this stupidity of the emotionally immature is create through analysis and synthesis another way to express, articulate and document their profiling data into a form termed in a more accepted way that data. 

“Observing the person it was noted that they performed the following movements, actions and indicators that when collected and assessed as a whole told us the person or persons were preparing for and readying to enter into a criminal activity that would endanger the public as well as the police first responders. After careful consideration it was determined necessary to take appropriate authorized actions to address the individuals to further gather data, analysize that data with the trigger information observed and the synthesize both the intent of the observed and the actions authorities, in this case the police first responders, to prevent any further potential criminal activity.” Note: I are not a professional police officer so this statement is just the example that came to my mind how to articulate and document any actions before (normally called profiling but now referred to as data-mining), during and after a professional(s) become involved. As far as I can determine, with my level of experience, knowledge and understanding, there is nothing in there that says directly or peripherally it is profiling. 

When media uses such language to convey a meaning by misdirection of compliance methods/principles to steer the general public toward believing the most dramatic ratings generating news story possible that smacks of irresponsible, dangerous and destructive behavior - it isn’t the objective news, it is reality media entertainment. 

I would not, due to social conditions, use the term profiling in my self-defense lessons but you can pretty much bet that it is there even if not on a conscious level simply because it is natures tool humans are encoded with like the flight-or-fight response to danger. It is like saying, don’t bother breathing brother, you don’t need it and it is a bad thing because it means you are using it to single out the minorities. 

STOP making and using excuses for the behavior, take responsibility for said behavior!

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“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)

p.s. I am so disappointed in news and social media, I feel it all needs to be regulated so that such irresponsible inflammatory agenda driven efforts must be taken to task when it ends up spreading misinformation, once called propaganda, so that still penalties, high - very high - monetary repercussions are levied when such things are published. They may say, but it was the news, yet when reported is often slanted and agenda driven where the facts are supplemented with compliance principles to get folks riled up, pay the price when that happens and maybe we would return to the historical days of real news. 

p.s.s. Oh, by the way, did you know there are several types of profiling? Profiling in information sciences, DNA profiling, Forensic profiling, Offender profiling, computer programming profiling, Racial profiling, Sexual Orientation profiling and Geographic profiling. All these are labeled that way due to the use of profiling to direct efforts toward a specific predetermined orientation of topic such as DNA being the profiling through the use of DNA testing, etc. In this sense then responsible reporting would not use “profiling” as a stand alone reference but rather, “Racial profiling,” in the case of minorities that needs to be justified, valid and factual before using. I would add “Criminal Profiling” rather than offender because it, in my mind, looks to the criminal elements, not the individual, that tells us that possible criminal activity may be taking place, etc. 

p.s.s.s. Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling, is an investigative tool used by law enforcement agencies to identify likely suspects (descriptive offender profiling) and analyze patterns that may predict future offenses and/or victims (predictive offender profiling). Offender profiling dates back to 1888 and the spree of Jack the Ripper, and the profiling theory describes how profiling will ideally work. Current applications include predictive profiling, sexual assault offender profiling, and case linkage (using profiling to identify common factors in offenses and to help with suspect identification). Goals of criminal profiling include providing law enforcement with a social and psychological assessment of the offender; providing a "psychological evaluation of belongings found in the possession of the offender"; and offering suggestions and strategies for the interviewing process. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling [NOTE: It is just not a simple subject and as you can see it involves a great deal yet media and news media tend to use generic all encompassing terms and methods toward reporting that leave a lot out thus misinforming the public and creating misconceptions that once set cannot be changed by simply printing retractions even if they are put front page in the news. 

Click for larger, readable, view. Note: I suspect there are
other such graphics out there to help understand
self-defense profiling type things?