Essay #1: The Sample Essay

The Similarities Between Profiling Pit Bulls and People

The ban of pit bulls in Ottawa, Ontario; random searches of passengers on New York
City subways; the traits Drug Enforcement Administration agents have used to stop suspected
smugglers in airports: what do all of these issues have in common? They are all examples of
profiling in the United States, stemming from generalizations about a trait that is constantly
changing. These examples are only a few of the typical variations of constraints made by the
government based on unreliable commonalities each year. Malcolm Gladwell, author of the
article “Troublemakers: What pit bulls teach us about profiling,” says that generalizations are
ways of people making predictions – some of those predictions being right and majority of them
wrong. As he discusses in depth, the discrimination against pit bulls in Ottawa, Ontario teaches
us about the racial profiling of people, as a result of the government linking someone (or
something) to a behavior or trait and abusing their rights because of it. Generalizing is “a choice
of what factors to leave in and what factors to leave out,” (Gladwell, 2) and it is in this way of
categorizing that leads to the wrongdoing of victims of profiling.
Gladwell’s article begins with a story of a young boy being viciously attacked by a pit
bull in Ottawa, Ontario, thus leading to the ban of pit bulls. By doing this, Gladwell is showing
the simple facts, without embellishing the case. However, as the article continues, his real point
unfolds. With strong statistics and evidence, he goes on to say that the pit bull ban is a way of
profiling that can teach us what not to do (that is, to stay away from generalizing others). He
defines what Raymond Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner, calls profiling’s “category
problem” (3), which only works if the category being generalized can be clearly identified. If the
category is always in motion, then the generalization is unreliable. Pit bulls, for instance, are not
a constant; there is not one single breed of the pit bull, and pit bulls come from all different
neighborhoods. They are also a breed that comes and goes due to the popularity of the breed in
the given time period (if there are more pit bulls than other large dogs, surely there are going to
be more incidents involving them). Pit bulls can be raised to be mean, since many owners of pit
bulls use them for protection, or can be abused by owners who purposely train them to fight.
Depending on the owner, circumstance and time period, pit bulls cannot be generalized because
these things are always changing. As Gladwell says, “A pit bull is dangerous to people, then, not
to the extent that it expresses its essential pit bullness but to the extent that it deviates from it.” (3)
Pit bulls, then, are being profiled because of judgments made by others. Why are other
dogs not being targeted? This runs parallel with the whole concern of racial profiling. If one
man is being attacked because he physically resembles members of a present terrorist
organization, what about the rest of the population? Kelly questions, “You think that terrorists
aren’t aware of how easy it is to be characterized by ethnicity?.. Could a terrorist dress up as a
Hasidic Jew and walk into the subway, and not be profiled? Yes.” (3) Generalizations are
stemmed from an individual’s opinions and judgments, not real, constant traits; anyone, despite
the color of their skin, could be a terrorist, and it doesn’t make sense to search someone because
of their physical attributes. Law enforcement officials are required to keep the peace within the
community and prevent crime, but to what extent can they search individuals? Many officials
use race as a way to profile people, but this only leads to the abuse of civil rights and
discrimination. By removing generalizations – as Kelly did – and narrowing down suspicions to
stable categories, searches can be conducted in an effective way that aren’t targeting people
based on race or generalizations.
As Gladwell says on page 2, “the process of moving from the specific to the general is
both necessary and perilous.” Making generalizations is a part of life and the way people make
sense of the world, but it is not always right. When one generalization is harmless, another is
negative and discriminatory. Whether it is the banning of pit bulls or the random searching of subways in New York City, profiling is never the answer to any solution.
Word count: 756