Deep secrets of racial profiling (finale)

A brief look back at where we have been in this series. If you missed any of its ten parts, I hope you will take a quick look. I would like to point out in particular the post on Michelle Alexander (part 4), which I believe makes a contribution to the subject with a lot of help from the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald.

Part 1: “Here I set forth seven theses as rules of thumb that may help cut through the fog, numbered so that anyone can easily comment, elaborate, and/or dispute them. These theses may or may not bear on any particular case, which may or may not represent racist behavior on the part of law enforcement, but they set any such case in the larger context. I believe each to be true. These are the deep secrets of racial profiling.”

Part 2: My article on ACLU racial profiling guru David Harris’s book Profiles In injustice.

Part 3: My exchange with ACLU racial profiling guru David Harris about Profiles In Injustice.

Part 4: On Michelle Alexander’s influential The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, declared by Cornel West to be “the secular bible for a new social movement” — the social movement that we have seen in action on the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore as well as the highest reaches of the Obama administration.

Part 5: A “grandmotherly” reader comments on the experience of TSA security theater, carefully calibrated to avoid the perils of “racial profiling.”

Part 6: Adventures in the alleged racial bias of the judicial system, Minnesota edition.

Part 7: With the help of the ACLU, we take a look at the local angle in Minneapolis and ask the forbidden question: “[W]hy are blacks 8.7 times more likely to face arrest for low-level offenses in Minneapolis? Is it because the police are guilty of racism and misconduct? Or because blacks commit low-level offense at 8.7 times the rate of others?”

Part 8: The invaluable Heather Mac Donald faces off with New York Times columnist Charles Blow on the effects of the current assault on law enforcement.

Part 9: An open letter by Washington attorney James Scanlan to the powers-that-be in Minneapolis on the ACLU study.

Part 10: “The deepest secret of the campaign against law enforcement in the name of racial disparities is this one: behavioral disparities account for the racial disparities.” An inquiry into the causes with the help of the late James Q. Wilson.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

UPDATE: Joe Malchow has added a convenient tab for this series at the top of our page under the Power Line logo.

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