Racial and ethnic profiling is all over the media. Last night, with a knot in my stomach, I watched the local news talk about the raids that happened all along the U.S. Northeast in search of those involved with the failed Times Square bombing fireworks show. I do not feel any safer.
As a survivor of 9-11-01, I feel less safe when I hear pundits on television saying this is the way to do ethnic profiling. Already one of the Muslim Junior High School students I work with is being bullied again. I don’t think she feels any safer either. I especially feel less safe for her and so many others when it is being argued that it is ok to suspend Constitutional Rights in the name of the “war on terror”.

And before anyone jumps on me in the comments section, pointing out to me that this site is called VivirLatino, here is the connection.

Recently another report came out of my city, New York City, saying that people of color, specifically Blacks and Latinos were more likely to be stopped and frisked BUT that they were not more likely to get arrested. Meaning that ::gasp:: Blacks and Latinos are not more predisposed to criminality. We just always seem to fit the description or look “suspicious”. Don’t tell that to a “cop in the hood” though. It just makes sense that more of “us” are stopped in “our” neighborhoods.

The Village Voice is running a fascinating feature looking at how one police precinct in predominantly POC Bed Sty, Brooklyn gives out it’s marching orders to beat police. To no one’s surprise really, secret tapes reveal pressure on police to meet certain ticketing and arrests quotas or else. Combine this with a well documented culture of racism within the police force (read the Mollen Commission, it’s old but still very relevant) and you have the conditions for abuse laid out.

Why are people expected to be shocked that there were Latino officers at the scene of the recent beatdown of a Latino by Seattle Police? As if we haven’t had enough of internalized hate and indoctrination into the blue culture surrounded by a blue wall of silence.

Now we return to Arizona. Where SB1070 has Latinos and others questioning if their shoes look “illegal”. Now we have people saying, like in the case of suspect Faisal Shahzad, that profiling just makes sense. Pakistanis or people who look like Pakistanis more likely than not are terrorists, just like Mexicans or those who look like Mexicans (whatever the hell that means) more likely than not are undocumented criminals.

No wonder my local police department was reluctant to file a report when my apartment was ransacked. They would much rather be stopping and frisking innocent people.