The funny thing is that the white crayon has always been the most useless of the bunch.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
The Crayola Nation (aka WTF Arizona?)
The funny thing is that the white crayon has always been the most useless of the bunch.
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2 comments:
I was in Arizona recently. The locals were quite surprised at the controversy generated by SB 1070. They just want safe neighborhoods and while I'm generally perceived as a politically conservative heterosexual male Caucasian, none of them divulged the master plan for ridding the state of any particular class of people. Maybe I've been living in Madison so long that I no longer recognize the hand signals. Hmm.
Arizona is a rather Libertarian state where people are generally left to their own devices and oddballs are tolerated, even cherished. Heck, you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet there, and even ride a ten speed on the interstate if you think that's a good idea.
Personally, I do not believe in the concept of "race" and I don't understand why so many people do. Maybe no one has explained it clearly enough. But for those who do believe in race, how likely is it that Hispanic law enforcement agents in Arizona are going to racially profile their own kind? I'm guessing that a significant percentage of law enforcement agents in Arizona are Hispanic, maybe not the majority, but perhaps 25% to 40%. If you accept the assumption the underlies the "white cops will discriminate against non-whites" argument then you have back off a bit and realize that racial profiling, if it were to happen, would not be prevalent, and where it did occur it'd be visible, easily reported, and quickly addressed. I don't buy the racial angle, nor the assumed racism of group A towards groups B, C, etc., and in general I trust law enforcement agents to do their jobs professionally and fairly.
And of course, SB 1070 prohibits racial profiling. Law enforcement agents can't grab people off the street at random and demand to see their papers - an individual has to already have been stopped for a legitimate reason before the question of immigration status could arise.
Or have I gone wrong somewhere?
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