by David Safier
Arizona is going to train its officers on enforcing SB1070, including a video with all the needed information.
There's only one little problem. They haven't quite figured out what "reasonable suspicion" means.
Executive Director Lyle Mann stressed officers watching the video will be told they cannot engage in "racial profiling" or even consider someone's race, ethnicity or national origin.
"Race is not an (indicator) of criminality," he said, saying the fact there are so many Latinos in Arizona is a reason why that cannot be a factor. The criteria, he said, are still being determined.
That's a damn big problem. Separating racial profiling from
"reasonable suspicion" will take the dexterity of a brain surgeon.
Apparently, the police will check to see if someone looks nervous during a stop. That's a clear indicator the person is undocumented. Because no one with documents ever gets nervous during a stop by an officer.
If someone is wearing suspicious clothes, that could create "reasonable suspicion" as well.
Oh, and if someone is carrying clothes in a plastic bag, or looks like he/she has been walking in the desert for 3 days, that's pretty suspicious.
And while police officers are doing all that scrutiny, they must never, never, never notice the color of the suspect's skin or the person's accent. That, after all, could lead to racial profiling.
The article saves the best for last — and by best, I mean the most revealing in its absurdity. A number of people will appear in the training video, but no one "from Hispanic community groups or civil-rights organizations."
"The issue that I'm charged with has to do with training the officers," Mann responded, saying he is "sympathetic" to how Latinos see the law. But he said he believes the training will address those concerns without the need for participation in the video by members of the minority community.
See, you don't have to be a member of a minority community to know how "those people" feel. That's why the majority community has such a great record of being sensitive to issues like race, religion and sexual orientation.
After all, those minority folk are just like everyone else — except a little weirder, right? And lazier. And stupider. And wrong about what God is like. And sexually perverted.
And what's really weird about "those people" is, they're always talking about how they're oppressed. Where in the world would they get that idea?
At least they won't be allowed to talk about that ridiculous notion in school classrooms anymore! Or on the SB1070 training video.
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The fact the term “reasonable suspicion” has yet to be defined is no coincidence, it is delightfully vague by design.
When dealing with touchy issues like “racial profiling,” especially in the context of the United States which is well practiced in the art of racism, it is best to cover your bases from all angles. The objective is to get all of those “trouble making illegals” out of the country. This strategic move will allow us to effectively deplete our working class, and ignore the fact that all terrorist attacks from 9/11 to date have been committed by well documented, legal terrorists (if preventing terrorism is even a concern).
The trouble is, these illegal immigrants are all mixed in with the legal citizens making it difficult to distinguish the two. We’ve cast a wide net of suspicious characters, about half the world’s population can be described as having tan skin, dark hair, and brown eyes just like the “Latinos and Muslims.” Furthermore, many of the legal citizens in Arizona are Latino who have the nerve to look just like the illegal ones!
How do we get them out you ask?
Simple, we begin by infringing upon the Civil Rights of all citizens and non-citizens alike by signing sweeping laws like the USA Patriot Act and the Military Executive Order. The first allows us to invade everyones privacy legally and the second let’s us imprison pretty much anyone without granting their right to trial. Isn’t that great! In laws like these, we introduce terms like “reason to believe,” and “reasonable suspicion,” because it is impossible for people to define what we mean by reasonable. That way we can make up or adjust our definition of reasonable depending on the context.
With those laws already in place we can just drop in others like SB 1070 so that we can target any racial group comfortably.
In an effort to remain fair we will limit our officers by only allowing them to engage an individual by way of “lawful contact.” Lawful contact can include any way in which a uniformed officer makes contact with a civilian. The beauty of this is that an officer would pretty much have to introduce himself by smacking civilians for the contact to be considered illegal. “Lawful contact” can be as simple as an officer saying hello to a “brown” passerby. His English better be good or the officer will nab ‘em. If the “brown fellow’s” salutation isn’t on par the officer can then demand the “brown” fellow’s papers. If those documents are not present, the officer will have “reason to suspect” he is an illegal alien who is unlawfully present in the United States and must be arrested, detained, and deported immediately. According to SB 1070, the officer may also arrest a person without a warrant. Who wants to wait for approval from a judge for those silly things anyways.
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“Racial profiling” in this context is unavoidable. The fact of the matter is illegal immigrants from European countries are not the main concern in Arizona. It is the Latino community that will suffer most from this law. Law enforcement officers will clearly have to stop individuals who appear to be illegal which requires “racial profiling” in itself. This is a huge step in the wrong direction that will surely result in political backlash.