Q&A 6, First Answer

The basic form of my question is: Why would people support the idea of racial profiling despite knowing that it does not work?

While I imagine that most supporters of racial profiling believe that it does work, there are also likely people who are aware of its inefficacy, yet who continue to support it.  It is difficult to determine why they do this.  The theory which springs most readily to mind is that they wish to use racial profiling to continue the oppression of minorities.  However, any one person who is subject to racial profiling is unlikely to incur much more than minor, temporary irritation, feelings of injustice, or other relatively insignificant psychological trauma.  How, then, could racial profiling reinforce isolation or oppression of minority groups?

There are two ways which I can think of at the moment.  One is that, although the effects of each individual profiling may be negligible, they can have the combined effect of reinforcing feelings of separation, inferiority, or other oppression-contributing emotions in the profilee.  The other, which is, I think, the more likely of the two is that racial profiling can send a message to the majority that the profiled minority is different from, and lesser than, the majority is.