Detroit community demands end to racial profiling

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Peoples World

"How does a documented person look? Can a Border Patrol agent tell by physical appearance, or name, if someone is documented or not, a criminal or not?"

These questions were asked by Dawud Walid, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Michigan, at a June 30 press conference outside Hope of Detroit Elementary School in Southwest Detroit.

Physical appearance or religious affiliation cannot determine citizenship, Walid declared. However, he said, CAIR has documented dozens of cases where those characteristics have been used by government officials to harass people.

Walid accused Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of "racially profiling our community, of Latinos, Arab Americans and Africans."



Read more: http://peoplesworld.org/detroit-community-demands-end-to-racial-profiling/

[WatsonT]

1. Simple solution:

Check everyone who is arrested.

There, problem solved.

[Tempest]

2. Do you really want to give the tea baggers more ammunition?

Society would be better off if profiling wasn't done at all.

[slackmaster]

3. If police aren't allowed to profile, they have to regard every person with suspicion

Including young children, elderly people, women, the disabled, etc.

We know that demographics have some relation to the likelihood that a person is a criminal.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. That's preferable...

...to doing it only to people, children, elderly people, women, the disabled etc. whose albedo is less than X.

[slackmaster]

7. Treating all people as equally suspect would be a waste of time and resources

I went through about 10 years of life being a member of a highly suspect class - Young unmarried males.

I went out to a lot of concerts, parties, etc. and was frequently detained and question by police. I had the privilege of outgrowing it and aging into a less suspect class. I feel no resentment for the treatment I received when I looked suspicious by being young.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. So, all those Latinos and African-Americans should just become white and stop complaining.

Riiiiiiiight. :crazy:

[slackmaster]

9. Maybe they should address the reasons they're regarded with extra suspicion

And those aren't all the fault of the police.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. By doing what?

[slackmaster]

15. When I was in my late teens and 20s, there wasn't much I could do about my badly behaved peers

But I tried to set a good example for them.

If you are stuck in a group that is known for having a higher than normal incidence of criminality, all you can really do is protect yourself by staying clean.

Life deals people bad cards sometimes. I had to wear eyeglasses starting at age 8, and had a German surname in the 1960s in a military town where memories of World War II were still fresh. I was teased and experienced other forms of discrimination. That's how life is sometimes.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. Therefore, your post #9 is bullshit. -nt

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. Meanwhile, here's something for you to chew on.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4911121

[shoutinfreud]

12. How do the police know you're not married?

Are they driving around looking at ring fingers?

[shoutinfreud]

13. How do the police know you're not married?

Are they driving around looking at ring fingers?

[LanternWaste]

16. I imagine you had a choice to be where you were...

I imagine you had a choice to be where you were and doing what you did, which seems to me somewhat different than having a particular skin color that one may not be able to control... :shrug:

[slackmaster]

17. I didn't have a choice about my age, and I behaved in a manner consistent with my peers

Oscar Grant had a choice not to be where he was when he was killed by a BART cop, but I haven't seen anyone on this forum blaming him for his death.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. The non sequiturs are getting old. Why don't you try a different fallacy?

[WatsonT]

20. So my plan of treating everyone exactly the same is in fact profiling?

what *isn't* profiling then?

[defendandprotect]

4. Now there's a thought -- !!! Much higher level of policing in these areas ...

And our prisons system is filled with people of color --

[No Elephants]

5. Arabs have been subjected to discrimination, esp. since 911, but they never made it to any official

affirmative action list, as did Hispanics, African Americans, First Americans, etc. Not that that makes up for being discriminated against==far from it. But at least it's something.

Jews and Iranians never made it to the list, either. Not sure, but I don't think Japanese, Chinese, etc. did, either. Hmmmmm.

[AlphaCentauri]

11. Most groups that had open doors to capital since WWII have not been in an affirmative action list

having access to money loans and schools just give them good advantage over the other groups