| Racial Profiling: The Scary Slogan of the Day |
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| Written by Len Sherman | |
| Thursday, 08 May 2008 | |
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One of the most ridiculous aspects of the whole immigration debate has been the issue of racial profiling. The sheriff really can’t be effectively attacked on straight political terms, as the vast majority of citizens approve of his actions, and he is surely within his legal rights to enforce the law. Instead, looking for a wedge issue, the notion of “racial profiling,” that the sheriff is targeting Mexicans and other Hispanics, has been offered as the hot button, a way to rally people to demand that the sheriff desist in his efforts, even if they don’t support the illegals. As reported by the East Valley Tribune yesterday: Joe Arpaio’s latest round of high-profile crackdowns on illegal immigrants is drawing accusations from one prominent county leader that the sheriff is guilty of racial profiling. Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, D-District 5, on Tuesday became the first member of the Board of Supervisors to publicly scold Arpaio’s saturation patrols, saying that “he’s gone too far.” “I just felt it was time to stand up and go toe-to-toe with him and tell him this is not right,” she said. “I think what he’s done is terrorize the community.” Along with “racial profiling,” throwing in the term “terrorizing,” or any word utilizing the root “terror,” is an obvious political ploy. Mary Rose Wilcox is a local Hispanic politician, always seeking to pander to her constituency, while at the same time playing nice with big money business interests. That might not sound clever, to some extent, but it’s only politics the old-fashioned, ward-heeler way, as common today as it was in the days of Tammany Hall. Just to make the cliché complete, Wilcox has her own sweetheart government/local utility/corporate interests real estate deal that has smelled bad for a long time, and has been kicked over by the local media over and over, to no avail. Wilcox is certainly neither intellectual nor trailblazer, just another small-time hack offering up accusations, slogans and promises to a gullible, anxious audience in order to carve out her little piece of power and profit. So back to the nonsense about racial profiling. It’s not different with immigrants in Arizona than it is with Mideast types at the airport. To wit: When Swedes start blowing up airplanes, the government should start taking a closer look at every blonde coming in from Europe. When Swedes start sneaking in to the U.S. across the Mexican border, then ditto. Until then, all government is capable of, all law enforcement has the resources for, all common sense demands, is that we focus our efforts on the most likely lawbreakers and terrorists and scenarios. It is not racial profiling to concentrate our limited resources on looking for terrorists among Saudis flying into JFK, rather than, say, Haitians floating on rafts to Florida, and it is not racial profiling to presume that it is more likely that someone who does not speak English, is driving a vehicle without proper tags, and carries no U.S. Identification, is more likely to be illegal than a silver-haired, seventy-year-old couple out with their grandkids for Sunday brunch in their shiny Buick with an Indiana license plate and an “I Brake For Kindness” bumper sticker. You might not like it, but it doesn’t matter, it is reality, and while politicians often choose to ignore to reality, the rest of us cannot. Incidentally, the rest of the article went on to make something of an ironic counterpoint: Her (Wilcox’s) comments came as Arpaio was conducting another round of crime suppression sweeps — this time in his hometown of Fountain Hills — arresting nine people suspected of being in the country illegally. One other was arrested on an outstanding felony warrant. All total, deputies made 10 arrests — including three felony warrants — on seven traffic stops during the seven-hour operation. Deputies will continue patrolling the town today. The irony being, of course, that Fountain Hills is as white as it comes around here, which is pretty damn white, fails to qualifies a hotbed of illegal activity, and the sheriff went there because of complaints from residents regarding traffic – speeding, red-light running, that sort of thing. The deputies didn’t seek out men lounging outside a gas station, looking for work, for instance, but set up traffic stops, looking for civil traffic violations. Mundane police work. But those distinctions are lost when you’re a two-bit politico trying to score points. |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 22 May 2008 ) |
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