GOVERNOR WHITMAN'S GAFFE

A startling photograph has surfaced showing Gov. Christine Todd
Whitman of New Jersey grinning while frisking a black man who has his
hands up and is facing a wall. The picture was taken on a night in
1996 when she accompanied state troopers who were patrolling in
Camden. The man she frisked had apparently already been searched by
the troopers for weapons and drugs and then handed over to the
governor. The man had not been accused of any crime.

The picture has caused a furor, and Mrs. Whitman is now criticizing
her critics for taking the picture "out of context." But the fact
remains that the posed look of the photograph and Mrs. Whitman's
smiling expression add up to the appearance of a gratuitous insult.
The controversy over the photo may also help explain why Mrs. Whitman
has had so much trouble putting the political problem of racial
profiling by New Jersey state troopers behind her.

One reason the issue will not disappear is that racial profiling --
the targeting and searching of motorists based solely on race -- has
gone on for years, despite denials by political leaders like Mrs.
Whitman. Also, the anger and mistrust in minority communities over
this issue are deeply rooted, despite Mrs. Whitman's subsequent
acknowledgment of the problem and her efforts to deal with it.

The photograph simply feeds that anger and mistrust. Mrs. Whitman
insists the episode had nothing to do with racial profiling. But that
does not change the fact that the man in the picture was treated
callously by the person who is chiefly responsible for setting the
direction and tone of law enforcement in the state.

To be fair, Mrs. Whitman was the first New Jersey governor to
acknowledge that state troopers had engaged in systematic racial
profiling. In the past year she began efforts to combat profiling as
part of a consent decree entered into between the state and the
Justice Department. She has also conceded that state police commanders
have tolerated racial and sexual discrimination against minority and
female officers. In the face of numerous lawsuits brought by former
state troopers, she has ordered an overhaul of the agency's hiring and
promotion practices and its command structure.

But those bureaucratic reforms do not take the sting out of the photo.
Mrs. Whitman's refusal to apologize for the conduct in the photo adds
to public skepticism that her administration will energetically crack
down on illegal policing practices. A lawyer for two troopers who have
been criminally charged for shooting three unarmed minority men on the
New Jersey Turnpike has already said the photo will be used to support
their contention that racial profiling was encouraged by the police
leadership. If the governor cares to heal the mistrust, she needs to
show that she understands why the picture is offensive to so many people.