A profile substitutes recognition for detail and draws an incomplete picture by definition.

Evidence

But what exactly is a profile? It’s a sketch in charcoal, the simplified contours of a face, a silhouette in black and white, a textbook description of a personality. By definition a profile draws an incomplete picture. It substitutes recognition for detail. It is what an outsider from the street observes when looking through the windowpane of someone else’s life. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 43

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reframes ‘profile’ etymologically as an incomplete sketch, grounding the critique of profiling in its very definition.
• XREF: connects to: Exhibits distort meaning when a stray biographical detail becomes an exhibit — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 500