Three Philadelphia police officers have been shot in the last week, one of them a black women, and the buzz in the media has been about racial profiling. Unlike past periods of media attention toward the subject, the recent stories about profiling of young black males no longer focus on the unfairness of the practice or of the community outrage. Instead there is a sad resignation, especially among black people, who increasingly acknowledge that they practice racial profiling themselves and the targets of their profiling are exactly the same as the police. Even young black males admit they are most suspicious of strangers who look just like themselves. It's been more than a decade since Jesse Jackson made his famous and rueful confession about the fear he feels when he hears the sounds of young men's footsteps behind him, and the relief he feels when he turns to see that they are white.

I have written in this space about an incident in the early '80's when my son's best friend Robert was picked up by the police on his way to school at 5th and Fitzwater Sts. in what many still called South Philadelphia rather than Queen Village. According to the police Robert fit the description of a black man who had snatched a purse on South Street. Robert was twelve. He was crying when the police brought him before the victim, a white women who reacted angrily, "I told you it was a man six-feet-tall. You've brought me a boy!" When the police dropped Robert off at school, without walking him inside to explain why he was late, one of the cops said, "Next time, don't cry." I wish I could tell Robert that things have changed in his hometown almost as much as I wish I could tell you that Robert is alive today.