September 06, 2007

Those brown-skinned bad guys

Like blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities, Indians have been subject to racial profiling throughout their history. They were assumed to be guilty of something because they were savage, uncivilized, shifty-eyed, uncooperative, etc.

Here's a posting that explains the problems with profiling:

"I see nothing wrong with profiling Arabs. ... Let's concentrate law enforcement where it's needed."

1 comment:

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Some 15 years ago, two OKC Will Rogers airport police, one male, one female, accosted a Native woman and her young son who were walking on airport access roads away from the facility. Apparently, since there were no witnesses, the two police either struck the boy or otherwise hurt him and the mother fought back. She managed to wrest a loaded pistol from one of them and shot them both dead. It caused quite a furor in Oklahoma City and the woman eventually went to prison but escaped the death penalty. After that, Natives were anathema in the OKC airport and writerfella himself ran into both fear and bigotry at the airport when he went there to fly to Denver for a science fiction convention. Talk about racial profiling! writerfella was followed everywhere he went in the airport, he had to undergo stringent carry-on luggage inspections, and it was as though he himself somehow was a threat to airport security by his mere presence. Long before 9/11 and certainly within 100 years of the Indian Wars, writerfella learned the vindictiveness of American EuroMen. The particular era has faded over time, but when writerfella and his late brother David flew to Las Vegas from Will Rogers airport in 2004, David had to endure an almost-strip search because metal detectors picked up the metal pins in his chest resultant of a five-way heart bypass operation. Even with a signed medical statement from his doctor, David still was subjected to scrutiny and embarrassment simply because he had fallen ill. ...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'