This was submitted to USA Today but has yet to be published. I couldn't find these stories in the online archive. -ed. (read Micah)
To the Editor:
I was concerned to find two articles published on Thursday, March 9, and Monday, March 13. The first was one of the paragraphs in your Across the U.S.A. section. It discussed a study done in North Carolina demonstrating that police officers pulled over nearly twice as many whites as blacks. The obvious message behind the paragraph was that things aren't so bad; that racial profiling is not the problem it is made out to be. Your own statistics, however, belie that message.
The population of High Point, NC was listed as 68% white, and 30% black, leaving a 2% undefined "other". Of those motorists stopped, however, 58% were white, 34% were black, and 8% were "other". As you can see, white motorists were still underrepresented in traffic stops by 10%, black motorists were over represented by 4%, and the "other" group was grossly over represented--the number of "other" motorists stopped was four times the number of "others" in the general population.
Aside from the conflicting statistics and message, I can't help but wonder why in the world this is considered news? An article on how police do not appear to be racist is analogous to running an article about how I, a college student, went to class today. I'm supposed to! It's part of my daily routine! It is neither news, nor is it worthy of celebration. And again, I point out that a city where there are *well over* twice as many whites as blacks in the general population, but the police are pulling over *almost* twice as many whites as blacks, has nothing to celebrate in the first place.
Then, on Monday, March 13, I found "Fla. Study Challenges Belief: Police use force more often against their own racial or ethnic groups." Again, regardless of what this report was meant to accomplish, there seems to have been no analysis of the cited statistics. You say that white officers use force against 26% of white suspects, while black officers use force against 16% of white suspects. Additionally, white officers use force against 40% of black suspects, while black officers use force against 67% of black suspects. What you neglect to point out, however, is that white officers use force against 26% of white suspects, while they use force against 40% of black suspects. In other words, whites are 50% more likely to use force in interracial conflicts than in intraracial ones.
Aside from the unfortunate misuse of statistics, I find it reprehensible that a national newspaper with a wide readership such as yours would apparently try to make the extremely important and loaded political issues of racial profiling and police brutality seem nonexistent or unimportant. I challenge the editors of USA Today to refocus first on publishing news, rather than column filler, and second, on looking beyond poorly used statistics to examine the underlying issues.
Katherine Root