Racial Profiling | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘racial profiling’

Why Does Latino in America Equal Spanish Being Criminalized and Pushed Aside

28 Oct 2009

It’s not just immigration that is being criminalized as some people have commented. Any trace of Latinidad deems people as targets for varying forms of harassment ranging from traffic stops, to tickets, to jails, to beat downs, to deaths. While some think that skin color alone can “mark” someone as other, and in this case Latino, language and varying levels of accents also brand. Just look at how much time is spent in this discussion on Latino in America on the issue of assimilation, acculturation and the role of language.

The issue always is how can you speak Spanish and still assimilate/aculturate with the ultimate goal seemingly being not being labeled/identified/called out as “other”. If you are going to insist on speaking Spanish then for everyone’s sake do it at home, where no one else can see or hear you or else face the consequences:

Let us not forget that we started 2009 with someone getting physically attacked while having a cell phone conversation in Spanish.

Sometimes we don’t even need language. Just having a name that could remind someone that you are Latino is enough to get you fired.

New 287(g) is Alot Like Old 287(g) Just Don’t Call it Racial Profiling.

4:53 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| Politics · No Comments

17 Oct 2009

fy08ar_287g Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had entered into revised 287(g) pacts with 67 local and state law enforcement agencies. Despite the fact that many organizations, from this little Latino space in the blogmundo to the United Nations, have been critical of the program that empowers police to identify and remove undocumented immigrants, the “new and improved” 287(g) allegedly is “friendlier” (when have you known law enforcement to be friendly) and “race neutral” (is that like post-racial). The new Memorandums of Understanding (MOA’s), which haven’t been made public so they cannot be compared with the old MOA’s, allegedly include more oversight and state that the participating agencies have to focus on “serious” criminals and promise to follow civil rights and constitutional laws (no one checked if the signers had their fingers crossed behind their back).
Read more…

Sunday Funnies : “People from Central and South America may also be insulted if police make an assumption that, if they look Hispanic or speak Spanish, they must be from Mexico”

8:54 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Funny| chicago| race · 1 Comment

2 Aug 2009

I got this from Blabbeando and thought it too funny not to share. This video is an actual Chicago police department’s “sensitivity” training video.

Obama Attempts to Allay Racial Debate Over Beers

31 Jul 2009

Responding to the steady drumbeat of criticism for calling the Cambridge Police Department “stupid” for arresting Professor Henry Louis Gates for “coming home while black”, President Obama and his PR team rigged an event designed to position him as a mediator for a debate on racial differences (read racial profiling). The intimate encounter was sort of a summit — over beers — yesterday afternoon in the White House’s Rose Garden. Check out the above video.

ABC News has a good rundown of the content of that encounter, but a standout for me is this poignant statement by Gates:

Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control.“

It isn’t about Crowley and Gates. It’s about how American society continues to deny that racial profiling even exists.

But back to this specific incident, Crowley doesn’t seem to have seen how profoundly wrong his actions were, that is, if we are to be guided by his statements at the Beer Summit:

Crowley was asked if the controversy was a “teachable moment” for the sergeant, as President Obama said he’d hoped this would become?

He said it was.

And the lesson?

“The media can find you, no matter where you live,” he said.

Wow, glad you learned something there Sergeant Crowley!

Via / ABC News Political Punch Blog

287g Programs Expanded, Despite “Revamps” Immigrants Fearful

10:37 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration · 2 Comments

11 Jul 2009

NA-AY903_IMMIG_D_20090710164113 Did any of the immigrants’ rights groups have anything to say about the announcement of the expansion and “revamping” of the 287(g) program?
287(g) programs allow local law enforcement agents to enforce Federal immigration laws. The revision of the plan is supposed to calm the fears of immigrants and advocates who say that 287(g) programs encourage racial profiling among other abuses.

From the LA Times:

Local police agencies empowered by the federal government to enforce immigration law must focus their efforts on criminals who pose a threat to public safety, with less emphasis on those who commit minor crimes, Department of Homeland Security officials announced Friday…

…Some police departments check immigration status in a wide variety of crimes. Friday’s directive lays out federal priorities: violent crimes such as rape or robbery, as well as major drug offenses; followed by property crimes, such as burglary and fraud.

All 66 police departments that already participate in the program must sign a new, uniform memorandum within 90 days.

They also must agree to pursue the criminal charges that prompted an illegal immigrant’s detention. In other words, police can’t make an arrest just to find out if someone is in the country illegally…

…The memorandum says that police agencies will be bound by civil rights laws and subject to oversight by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they arrest and detain illegal immigrants for possible deportation. Any agency that cannot prove that it is following those standards could lose its federal authority.

Say Hell No to Sheriff Joe

7:00 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| arizona · Comments Off

27 Feb 2009

Sign a petition against the racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio so that the new Obama administration and it’s Justice Department will investigate his sick power plays and demonstrate that racial profiling is no joke.

FBI Considering Rules That Would Open the Door to Ethnic and Racial Profiling

7:42 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Justice · Comments Off

8 Jul 2008

Pacifica’s Democracy Now! reports that the AP is reporting (how’s that for third hand info) that the Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on racial or ethnic profiling. Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons, such as evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated, to investigate US citizens and legal residents.

Hmmm sounds like what they are doing already, now they would just be able to do it legally.

Disturbing Statistic : San Francsico Has More Blacks in Jail than in the City

7:35 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Justice| San Francisco| race · Comments Off

9 May 2008

The prison industrial complex is alive and well in San Francisco and it’s using blacks as the raw material. In recent years the black population in the city of San Francisco has been decreasing, with one exception, prisons.

More than 60 percent of all prisoners are African American, according
to a survey of the city jail’s population. And of the 282 female
prisoners, 67 percent are black.
About 42 percent of the jail population is in custody for drug
offenses, the study found.
A similar study in 1996 found that half of the jail population was
African American. A 2005 study put the number at 53 percent.
In contrast, 6.7 percent of San Francisco residents are black- a number that has been in steady decline, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

What is the reason for this alarming stat? Racial profiling.

Man Wrongfully Deported Sues U.S.

10:32 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration| Justice| mexico · Comments Off

29 Feb 2008

30-year-old Pedro Guzman was deported to Mexico in May after he was arrested and jailed on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. Nothing surprising there except for one thing. Pedro is a U.S. citizen.

Guzman, who is mentally disabled, was missing for nearly three months as his family looked for him in the shelters, jails and morgues of towns in Tijuana and neighboring cities. During that time, he rummaged for food in garbage cans, washed himself in rivers and walked as far south as Ensenada — more than 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the lawsuit.
Guzman tried to return to the United States several times but was turned away. He was found near the Calexico border crossing in August and reunited with his family.

Profiling and the Prison Industrial Complex

10:01 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Justice| MBAPBSAllAmericaDem · Comments Off

28 Jun 2007

These 30 second answers are leading to answers with zero substance. Basically what people are doing is the given, get rid of mandatory drug sentences but what is the focus on drugs, as if all POC are in jails and arrested because we are all crackheads, when it goes deeper than that.

Someone needs to do a word count on how many times the words drugs, crack, jail have been used because it seems like the candidates seem to think that is the root of evil rather than what causes those things to be used the way they are

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