THANKS TO ERIC HOLDER WE ARE ALL PROFILERS NOW: PETER KATT
WE ARE ALL PROFILERS NOW
“I am Attorney General…but also a black man,” proclaimed Eric Holder upon arriving in Ferguson, Missouri to meet with the gentle-giant’s (Rush’s term) family to dispense blind justice over grape sodas. Then we have Gov. Nixon appointing Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson, a black man from Ferguson with no prior authority to focus on local matters, to head up law enforcement’s efforts dealing with rioting. I believe these events let’s all of us profilers out of the closet.
I am an Eagle Lake resident, a white man and I can now proclaim, a proud profiler. Some back story. In the 1970s I was an Eli Lilly sales representative, spending my final two years at a teaching / research hospital. Among the staff were a good number of Indian-American physicians that were particularly pleasant, collegial and unfailingly polite. For the past twenty-five years I have enjoyed a national reputation in my narrow area of expertise that has given me the rare experience of being solicited for advice by clients throughout the US. Other than intellectual content within national journals for which I write, and rather frequent interviews, I don’t do any marketing or make efforts to attract clients. In other words, my clients all self-select themselves to use my services that benefit and protect their families (e.g., educational funding, estate planning, etc.).
Though I can’t be absolutely certain because I deal with clients via phone and various written conveyances, not in person, I believe the only non-white clients that have solicited me are Indian-Americans, and in high numbers, and my experiences from the 1970s continue.
OK, now back to Eagle Lake. Off from a point on my property is the lake’s sand bar – weekend party central. Mostly the behavior isn’t particularly obnoxious. However, last summer and the one before a group of Latinos, via public access, were regular visitors. They were on the borderline of obnoxious (loud, used lake as their ash tray and often stayed past midnight).
Last Saturday around 11am, two pontoons pulled up right off our point. Sitting in my office I noticed they had brown skin. Hmmm. (My first profiling of the day). So I stepped out and politely asked (from about sixty feet) if they could please move back from my property a bit. The response, “Oh, I’m sorry sir,” was delivered in the distinctive first-generation Indian-American accent. (My second and last profiling of the day). Making the quick sixty foot walk, I apologized to this gentleman, explaining my profiling ways, and assured him that he and his extended family were indeed welcome (of course, still public lake so there’s no choice anyway). I worked the rest of the afternoon in my office and very much enjoyed noticing the incredible fun they were having taking turns being pulled along in a chair-like inter tube behind their speed boat while tossing balls around waiting their chance. Indian-Americans aren’t a voting-block, they aren’t pandered to. They are the essence of civil society.
Thank you Holder and Nixon. I am no longer a closet-profiler.
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