Also, just to answer this question...

Asfalolh wrote:

minervana wrote:

I find it improbable that a majority of Germans will become neo-nazis , whereas the threat of a terrorist attack or a religious war is very real indeed.

Do you think that the possibility of a terrorist attack or a religious war is actually related to the influx of Muslim immigrants? Really? Please tell me how so. By this token, Vic's criminality indexes should be sky-rocketing, but they are not.

Remember that the 9/11 attackers were engineers and architects. One of them studied at the London School of Economics. There are so many Quranic verses which justify murder, rape, spousal abuse, genocide, race murder, not to mention imperial conquest. In Islamic countries, there's no distinction between church and state, although different states are more and less draconian in their regulations. Not to mention quotes from Muslim preachers like "Harming Allah and his messenger is a reason to encourage Muslims to kill whoever does that." Islam has never undergone a reform the way Christianity has, and there's no reason to anticipate it will in the future. I'd encourage you to read Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to understand what I'm talking about.

There have already been violent incidents in Europe. Think of Theo van Gogh, for example. He was shot and gutted in the street for, basically, airing a film which was slightly critical of Islam. Or the Danish cartoon affair. Of course there have been violent incidents by Nazis against Muslims, or Romani, or other minorities, but in many cultures they don't have public support.

I'm not saying Neo-Naziism is harmless. Quite the contrary. But there are more Muslims in Europe than Neo-Nazis, and they have the added support of their home countries and their religious leaders, which most nazis do not have.

Stormcrow wrote:

And before you go using verses from the Q'uran to justify hatred of Muslims, I suggest you actually read the Old Testament. You might be a little surprised by what you find there. Are you going to start hating Jews now because our holy book promises death to those who offend our god and all of their families too? And don't tell me that Jews aren't that way anymore, I have relatives that will mutter about such things when I tell them they're oppressing the Palestinians. Same as Muslims, there are crazy ones and there are sane ones. They're just people.

Beautifully said, Jacob.

And I would like to add:

minervana wrote:

Here's the problem: define suspicious.

A family friend worked as a police officer for over a decade. He said that after a while, you get an instinct about people. It's not right 100% of the time but if you ignore it you're doing everyone a disservice. It gets to the point where you can be in a crowded terminal, look across the room and spot a psychopath, even if s/he's just standing there. Should you just ignore that instinct if that psychopath is a minority? What if s/he might have an outstanding warrant and a history of violence?

I would ask if you think the police can stop someone if they look like (say) a suspected serial killer and ask them to produce identification. If you think that's okay, what's the difference between doing that, and asking someone to produce identification to prove they're legally in the US?

And you can judge whether or not a person is a serial killer based solely on looks?  Can decipher whether or not they have an outstanding warrant?  Really?  last time I checked, serial killers were pretty damned well known for looking like normal human beings.  No horns or anything like that.  Unless he's cradling a weapon or fits the physical profile of a criminal they're on the lookout for, an officer has no right to apprehend someone because they look fishy.  It's due process.

Prosecutors, officers, etc claim to have hunches a lot, but its a natural extension of their discretion, which can be biased when you consider that they only work with a fairly small segment of the population, criminals or accused persons.  On one hand, this does give them invaluable experience, but it also makes them more likely to be suspicious and paranoid of people in general.

Last edited by OnlyInThisLight (04-28-2010 09:18:59 PM)

Stormcrow wrote:

Your argument can be reduced down to an admission that our humanism and enlightenment are inherently weaker than the tribalism (yes, tribalism. It doesn't really have anything to do with religion) that you fear and the only way to protect ourselves from those who don't respect humanity is to become like them.

How is enforcing immigration law, deporting people, or paying them to leave the same as saying that their murder is justified? How is prosecuting people for genital mutilation, or honor killings, the same as committing these crimes? I would not say our humanism and enlightenment are "inherently weaker" than tribalism, since the enlightenment has given us modern science and medicine, not to mention the internet, the atomic bomb and Pez. But you're right; tribalism and democracy are incompatible, and if we choose the latter we can't accommodate the former.

And before you go using verses from the Q'uran to justify hatred of Muslims, I suggest you actually read the Old Testament. You might be a little surprised by what you find there.

I guess ad hominem is to be expected. But I don't hate anyone. The Koran is reprehensible, though. Christians and Jews can dismiss parts of their holy book, or not take it literally, but in many parts of the Muslim world you're required to believe (or pretend to believe) that the Koran is the perfect word of God, that it cannot have errors. Not only that, but Islam is the perfect divine creed, and it's beyond any criticism (even when it's very mild). People who insult Islam are what Scientologists call "fair game." Critics can be brutalized, or murdered, and their families may be brutalized as well.  Even Pope Benedict doesn't say this about his own religion, and he's the pope.

I agree with you that individuals, from every creed and caste, can possess splendid personal qualities. I'm sure there were many people in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Khmer Rouge and so on who were lovely, wonderful people. Good and bad qualities are not mutually exclusive: contrast southern hospitality with jim crow laws. But I've never heard of a case where ideology improved morals, even if some people were relatively unaffected.

Something like 1 billion people are Muslim. And murder, genocide, rape, slavery are all justified not only by the Koran, but by Muslim clerics, scholars and institutions. Do you really think the Church of England maintains that slavery is okay, because the Bible says so? Can you imagine Pope Benedict, or any head of state, for that matter, calling for a novelist's head because their book "insults Catholicism"?  There are "bad apples" in every group. How many do you think there are in 1 billion?

And it's not just the 9/11s or the Rushdie Affairs; every time someone self-censors out of fear is a small defeat. If people cannot abide criticism I see no reason to welcome them into a secular democracy.

I've read the Old Testament. It's horrid. It's also wonderful that we don't have to believe it under penalty of death.

They're just people.

Neo-Nazis are people, too. I've never met one that I know of, but I doubt they've all committed violent crimes. Someone who believes in a dangerous ideology is more likely to, though, and ought to be put under further scrutiny.

OiTL wrote:

And you can judge whether or not a person is a serial killer based solely on looks?  Can decipher whether or not they have an outstanding warrant?  Really?

No. It's called probability theory. The probability that an eighty-year-old woman will hurt somebody is fairly low. The probability that a machete-wielding schizophrenic will hurt somebody is high. Experienced police officers have enough experience that they develop a heuristic sense for when someone is "up to no good."

Re: profiling, my experience with it is pretty minimal, but here it is for what it's worth.  I used to be a canvasser for Amnesty International, and with a bunch of other canvassers we'd go downtown (I live in the twin cities, so big downtown areas) and stand on corners and ask people walking by, "Do you have two minutes for Amnesty International?" 

All the canvassers work in teams, usually kitty-corner to each other, and we have T-shirts and clipboards that identify us and read "Amnesty International."  So we all look/act basically the same.  But one of the things about bringing a team downtown is that you never, ever pair two black canvassers together.  Even though we are all doing exactly the same thing and there might be two white canvassers on another corner one street away, the police inevitably harass our black canvassers.  This is regardless of what type of neighborhood we are in. 

I bring this example up because we all do exactly the same thing, so there's nothing that warrants suspicion of one of us more than another.  The canvassers who would avoid pairing up together include my boss (an assistant director of the whole canvassing operation), and a guy who was the second-highest earner in the office.  They were damn good canvassers. 

Whatever instincts the police have, the way we had to take them into account was flat-out racism.  And I'm pretty privileged in that being a half-Asian who's light enough to be treated as white, I never had to deal with that outside of work.  I could just go home and be pissed off that the second-highest-earner on my team was chased off somewhere because the police didn't like him.  My coworkers, though, have to live this shit regularly.  I think it's easy to advocate for the accuracy of police intuition when you're not being profiled by it.

(ETA stuff about Arizona): With this new Arizona law, we're effectively legalizing singling out people solely according to their race.  Which is obviously discrimination.  And not just that, but it seems to me it opens the door to all kinds of abuses of power as well.  If an officer wants to harass someone and that person happens to be a Latin@, it will be very easy for the officer to just start demanding papers and give them trouble--and the law backs that up now.  In a perfect legal system we wouldn't have officers that would behave that way; but our legal system is far from perfect.  I was arrested once at a political event with a bunch of white kids and an Indian kid.  One of the white kids had a long record of minor misdemeanors.  The Indian kid had no record at all.  But the cops strip-searched the Indian kid.  And no one else.  Do we really want law enforcement to have a law that effectively permits them to use their "discretion" to decide who to target as undocumented?  Personally I think the law is legalized racism.

Last edited by Ico (04-30-2010 10:08:23 AM)

Prince_of_Stars wrote:

I just....I just have a question in regards to this AZ law. How does one look illegal? Like seriously, because I'm lost. I understand racial profiling well; I am for all intents and purposes black, and the other part of my heritage does not afford me the luxury to pass for white, and honestly, that's what this law sounds like to me. Just saying.

As I understand it, that's the gist of the new law... Arizona law enforcement (many of which are on record as being in opposition to this new law, incidentally) has the obligation to ask for the papers of anyone who they deem looks like an illegal immigrant. Not someone who looks like they are engaging in suspicious behavior, but someone who looks illegal. I saw a clip of the press conference from the day the bill was signed into law when the governor of AZ was asked by a reporter, "How do you know what an illegal alien looks like?", and the governor had no answer.

You're exactly right, PoS. That's the crux of this new law as I understand it. It's not about looking for drug cartels or human traffickers, that's just a convenient justification. It's about looking for illegal aliens based almost solely on appearance with no probable cause other than not being white. I highly doubt that the goal of Arizona's new law is to look for illegals from Poland, Holland, or France.

Adding fuel to the fire, there's also apparently a clause in the new law which allows public citizens to sue the Police Department if they feel that the officers are not enforcing the new law! Talk about being screwed no matter what you do... it's not just American citizens of Latino descent and legal immigrants who are unjustly targeted by this new law, but also the Arizona police force.

The whole thing is lose/lose. That and the new law may be unconstitutional, violating the 14th Amendment.

Last edited by Imaginary Bad Bug (04-30-2010 10:14:26 AM)

lex wrote:

As for the Arizona law....to reiterate that question how does one look illegal? Well, gee golly whiz didn't ya know? You can tell "illegal immigrants" via Clothing

Wow.  Is this real life?  I have to agree with the commenter to that article who posted the following quote: "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." -- Lily Tomlin

Following hot on the heels of the immigration reform, Arizona keeps failing.

School districts who teach 'ethnic studies' risk losing state funding, which is de-facto shut down.

Teachers with accents can't teach ESL.

I just.... I don't even.

Here in Tempe there is a lot of resistance, because it's a college town, but anti-immigrant sentiment is rampant in this state. And you're right, it's not anti-immigrants from everywhere, China, India, etc (those are "good" immigrants), but Latin@s. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. Arizona is the major crossing-over point from the Mexican border, and Phoenix has a heavy illegal immigrant population. The reason this crap gets passed is because it will get the state government representatives re-elected. Fucking Joe Arpaio got re-elected.

I'm white. I won't be stopped on the street and asked for my papers. But Latin@-looking people are now carrying their passports and documents with them. My friend said his dad is carrying his passport to check the mail.

Trench Kamen wrote:

Teachers with accents can't teach ESL.

I have a sort-of-political question which is related to this article; I hope it's not thread-derailing. It's about names. In the article, there's mention to the director of the Arizona education-department office charged with enforcing standards in classes for students with limited English, and she's called Adela Santa Cruz, which is a clearly Spanish name. It got me thinking. Is it usual to find people with fully Spanish names whose mother tongue is actually English? (I suspect the answer is yes). Is it also usual to a certain extent that some of them display a sort-of anti-Latin sentiment?

My context is one in which one can make quick connections (assumptions) between an individual's name and not only their background, but also their mother tongue, and sometimes even religion and familiar political views (in the two latter ones, it does easily become a prejudice). I wonder how well, if at all, this rule-of-thumb translates into the American context.

Current thoughts on the Arizona legislature as a whole.

Trench Kamen wrote:

Teachers with accents can't teach ESL.

Good luck finding someone without an accent, seeing as that doesn't exist.

It is indeed more complicated in America asfa. Now if I hear someone's name is Santa Cruz, I would definitely think they had some Hispanic background somewhere, but this was a woman, right? She might have just married into it? In general though, I think I still make those assumptions about names I recognize. If someone's name is Horiki, I would assume they're Japanese. As fro the anti-Latin sentiment... That's harder. The cultural make-up of Hispanic people in this country is quite complicated, with more recent immigrants sometimes clashing with those who have been here for generations. But not always. I dunno, we have a few Hispanic forum members, yes? Any thoughts?

As for SB1070, anyone who says it's not racially motivated (hmm, FOX news?) is lying, just as Trench Kamen said. Yeah, police already have all kinds of reasons to stop people, all of which need to be carefully outlined to make sure the cops don't get abusive with their power. In this case, "suspicious" means being sort of brown-skinned, maybe having a mustache, and definitely not speaking English. No one will admit these things out loud in public, but that's what really is going on. People in this country are really really pissed off right now, and lots of folks are just looking for someone to lay that anger on. Undocumented immigrants... Oh, I suppose in Arizona they really are illegal immigrants now, they weren't really before, despite being called that all the time, but anyway, people who are in our country without official sanction make a convenient scapegoat. They speak a different language, they have different cultural values, and there are a lot of them. And that way people can hate Hispanics and feel like they're not racist, because after all, these are "criminals".

Trench Kamen wrote:

Stormcrow wrote:

And that way people can hate Hispanics and feel like they're not racist, because after all, these are "criminals".

This. Exactly this.

You don't see this same level of vitriol aimed at undocumented immigrants from European countries. When asked, people will say that they think the same way, that it's not a racial thing, but deep down, they don't. European immigrants are "good" immigrants, it is thought. They'll assimilate. They'll learn English. They'll be productive, because they're inherently smarter, and somehow 'deserve' the American dream. Same with Asian immigrants from the 'good' countries, China, Japan, and Korea, and Indians who work in computer science. They're all "good" immigrants who will add to America. Latin@ immigrants are "bad" immigrants.

Granted, most immigrants here in Arizona *are* Latin@, because of our proximity to the border. They're a convenient scapegoat. The same thing happens every time there is a new wave of immigrants. Eastern Europeans. Irish. Germans. Chinese. Look at history.

^ So much truth here. I think what's really amazing is that Americans haven't learned that lawful discrimination is still discrimination and will only serve to deepen relationships amongst the populace. I remember learning about Irish immigration (as well as many others) and the hate crimes and general crap aimed at those who immigrated as well as their U.S. born children.