Judging the book by its cover

There's been quite a bit of talk about profiling, in the wake of several recent events that may not be related to terrorist threats but certainly look suspicious. In one case with ties to the Dallas area, three men were arrested in Michigan with 1,000 cell phones and pictures of the Mackinac Bridge in their van. Authorities later determined that the men were guilty of falsifying information about their intended use for the phones, but no terrorism link was proven.

Now, of course, the men's families are all over the local media, expressing their outrage over racial profiling and vowing to bring the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to their aid. And while it's entirely possible that the three men are merely criminals gray market entrepreneurs and not terrorists, I think that Cox & Forkum very neatly summed up my feelings on the profiling question in yesterday's editorial cartoon.

One of the things my parents taught me very early in life was not to "judge a book by its cover". I'm sure yours did too, and it's generally good advice. Unfortunately, there's no postscript to advise the adherent that he should not completely turn a blind eye to probability and pattern.

A novel whose cover depicts a woman in the throes of passion, swooning in the arms of a bare-chested, leather-booted archetype of male dominance may not be a cheesy bodice ripper, but one shouldn't discount the possibility. Certainly, if one is in the market for phrases like "her heaving bosom" and "she closed her eyes and reveled in his musky scent", books with such covers get the first look. Don't they?

I liken the problem to the one I face every day in traffic. Turtle has at times accused me of being biased in my evaluations of my fellow travelers, based on such factors as vehicle type, gender, race, and bumper sticker content. We've had more than a few conversations that went something like this:

Foo: Here we go. The guy in the silver Mercedes.
Turtle: What did he do?
Foo: Nothing yet... but he's getting ready force in front of the woman in the blue Hyundai, and she's going to slam on her brakes. So hang on.
Turtle: Why do you judge people like that?
Foo: Twelve years of daily commutes?
...
Turtle: That doesn't mean—aggh! Look out!
Foo: Toldya.

I guess my take is that looking at someone and rubber stamping him or her as this or that is wrong and should be avoided. At the same time, anyone who doesn't learn from past experience is liable to spend a lot of time thumbing through the dog-eared copies of Golf Digest and Popular Mechanics in Darwin's waiting room.