'Profiling'

We live in a world where judgments are made almost instantaneously by the speed at which information is shared and by the desire of media, political parties and governments to promote their agenda.

Many engage in profiling – attempts by the police to detain and arrest people based solely on the color of their skin and attempts by the extreme left to accuse all police for the actions of a few. With the advent of our highly polarized society and social media, profiling has become normal, and people are allowing their personal prejudices to guide their behavior.

We have recently seen an increase (or what appears to be an increase given the ubiquity of video recording devices everywhere) in violent acts against certain racial, national, professional, or religious groups as mass hysteria takes hold after attacks on individuals, groups, or organizations.

The wanton shootingS of unarmed black men by police has led to increased divisions in U.S. society and is feeding the rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum.

On the one hand, when someone dies during protests against racial discrimination or social inequities, populist leaders such as Trump direct group hatred at organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa, or any other convenient scapegoat.

Extremists on the right and Republican leaders from President Trump on down use these convenient scapegoats to stir up their base and whip up their political and social frenzy.

At the other end of the spectrum are extremists who blame all police for all attacks on blacks and other minorities without differentiating bad apples from good.  

Again, promoting hatred and violence as a political tool is a phenomenon of both the right and the left.

Yet, when a white supremacist murders someone, the right and their spokespersons at FOX News, Breitbart, the Republican Party, and others sometimes portray the perpetrator or perpetrators as troubled souls probably influenced by violent video games, movies rather than discuss how the easy access to firearms may be at the root. As well, they refuse to acknowledge that extreme right-wing groups have infiltrated the military and law enforcement and are today better armed than most police forces.  

While some police officers are prosecuted and sometimes jailed, the fundamental and sad difference is that the whole white race is not questioned in the same way as Blacks, Muslims, or Latinos are when one of theirs is the perpetrator.

Profiling, be it on the part of the right or the left now becomes a tool for creating an “us against them” mentality that aims to serve a particular political or social agenda.

The media share blame as well. Most mainstream media shy away from generalizations of this type, but they are the bread and butter of media that support extremist groups and politics.

Yet every time a Trump rally is covered by mainstream media, the mainstream media have one or more Trump apologists on air. The mainstream media provide the purveyors of the politics of hate with free publicity. It is calculated that, in 2016, free mainstream media coverage of Donald Trump would have cost any other politician over a billion dollars in advertising fees.

Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin once observed that “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”.

In today’s world, mainstream media may be performing the same function as Lenin’s capitalists by helping the extremes disseminate their messages of hatred and division to moderate or undecided voters all in the name of ratings and dollars.

And in the end, we could all pay a high price.

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Edición: Ana ordaz