Here’s a position guaranteed to anger almost everyone regarding the Larry Sykes fiasco: I think City Councilman Sykes disgraced himself. I also think racial profiling exists, that it is worse for young African-Americans than white folks can imagine or want to know, and that it probably happened to Mr. Sykes dozens of times in his life.

Mr. Sykes got stopped by the police in his SUV. It made him angry. He felt it was profiling. Mr. Sykes made a big deal out of it — in my view, using his position to throw his weight around.

But the cops did have a reason for the stop, which Mr. Sykes knew. One of his plates was missing and another was covered. And he was dishonest with The Blade: He said the one plate wasn’t covered, but it was. He did just about everything wrong.

I asked an African-American friend: “So what’s the moral here?” “Not to cry wolf,” he said.

My first job in journalism was in the South. My publisher, who was white, used to say, “If I were black, I’d be angry every day.” Mr. Sykes has a right to be angry. He had no right to cry wolf.

I’ve talked to several prominent black Toledoans about this. They tell me they’re stopped on a regular basis. Former Mayor Bell has said he’s been stopped for nothing. NAACP President Ray Wood said he’s been stopped three times in the last year and a half. No citations. A young black man who pulled into a parking lot on Jackman Road to check directions on his cell phone, rather than driving while doing so, was cuffed and arrested for trespassing. The teen was not ultimately charged. He put up no fuss when cuffed.

Mr. Wood calls that kind of thing “our reality.”

I have a black friend back East, a college professor. He said he gets stopped at least six times a year. He says it’s because he drives a BMW. A friend told me a black friend has been stopped 77 times since he began counting. And not one ticket.

Mr. Sykes can come back from this — with patience, hard work, and a little humility. America is the land of comebacks.

What bothers me is that, as with most discussions about race in America, we come down about where we started. No real enlightenment. For anyone.

At the last Community Coalition forum, Harold Mosley stood up during the question period. He’s a retired policeman and is black. He said his son, a good kid, is hassled constantly. The worst place, he said, is Ottawa Hills. People tell me if a black kid walks or drives down Indian Road in Ottawa Hills, he’s virtually sure to be stopped by the police. I live on that street. I am glad it is well patrolled. I understand police vigilance can look a lot like profiling.

But surely it is possible to do good police work without profiling. Racial profiling should be totally unacceptable in 2014. It’s disgraceful. And if you say it doesn’t exist, that’s a lie too.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade.

Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published May 20, 2014, 4:00 a.m.