The man pictured on the left is Martin Luther King Jr, on the right is a photo of the killer Charles Manson. They comprise only 17 per cent of highway users. 80 per cent of those stopped and searched in Florida are black or hispanic. They are only 5 per cent of drivers. And the practice is not just confined to driving, blacks are also 2-4 times more likely to be stopped and frisked by police than white citizens.
Police defend racial profiling on the basis that they just doing their job blacks commit more crime.
The problem is that the statistics they rely on are arrest rates . In a way this is true, the dark days of constant muggings seem over and New York certainly is much safer for a white tourist happily strolling in Central Park. But it is safety at a price and the price is paid primarily by young black men. This incident, of course, is well known. Fewer people know that no less than 72 black kids, I have to repeat that seventy-two black children , spent an entire night in jail in New York for .