I'm in law enforcement and I stereotype people all day

And it's saved my life a half dozen times. Even off duty I sort and categorize everyone that comes near me. I use dress, appearance, body posture, age, sex, race and past experiences to develop an informal threat matrix of every person I encounter. This process happens almost instantaneously and subconsciously. In crime-plagued neighborhoods or at night, my situational awareness is ramped even higher.

Most likely you do it too, especially when you're out with your family. Political correct culture tells you're wrong to do this, that you should treat everyone exactly the same and don't make any prejudgments about another person based on their outward appearance. This is recipe for disaster.

My middle school daughter is learning about stereotypes in school and asked me if I treated everyone the same at work. I told her matter of factly that I absolutely do not. This seemed to shock her.

I explained that my number one job is to go home to our family safely every day and enforce violations of federal law. Neither of these can be accomplished without stereotyping. Admittedly, as a fed I don't conduct nearly as many traffic stops or encounter the volume of low-level crackheads that state/local cops do but we do encounter and arrest shitheads of all stripes.

And when I come across a group of black males aged 16-25 I absolutely treat them differently than pretty much anyone else. I'm professional and courteous as the situation dictates but my tolerance for anything out of the ordinary is razor thin. Why? Because statistically this group is the single deadliest, most violent group of people in the country. And I want to get home to my family. It doesn't mean every black male is a criminal, nor does it mean they don't have the Constitutional rights afforded to every American. But it does mean I go into each encounter with a young black male- especially one with a known criminal history- with a very different mindset than when approaching, say, an elderly Chinese woman or a white guy in a Best Buy uniform.

When you're pumping gas or escorting your family into a hotel late at night while on vacation, do you find yourself sizing up those around you to determine who appears threating and who doesn't? Congrats on being a good dad/mom.