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New York, 12:12 PM
Mon Nov 30
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/18/09
I do object to a few things - when the TSA allows self pat downs of turbans in their bylines, and when their personnel in certain airports (oh in my case Phily) neglect to inform you of that option, I have a problem. Or when I'm chemically swabbed (I wish I was kidding) when I'm traveling with three other twenty somethings that weren't even pulled aside, I have a problem. Logic dictates we would all "allegedly" be involved, but the TSA doesn't work with logic.
Then there was this one time when they felt the need to go through every single item in my bag in an airport in Rochester (seriously, Rochester?), and this petite grandmother got offended on my behalf and unloaded a can of verbal whopass on the staff. That was pretty sick.
08/18/09
08/17/09
Caveat: No matter your skin color or last name, travel with a rugrat or little person and you are golden.
08/17/09
08/17/09
"But, Officer, it's only fair if I give you a thorough inspection too. Your wand looks so...powerful. My plane doesn't leave for another hour and I see your colleague is motioning for you to take your break...."
I would love to continue this scene, but I don't provide this kind of service for free and I don't think Gabey & Co.'s gonna pony up.
08/17/09
08/18/09
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08/17/09
So remember, BEARDS, a terrorist's best friend.
08/17/09
08/17/09
Racial profiling is a fact of life, though, and will be as long as we continue to have any sort of racial disparities related to crime/terrorism. It may be tough, but for those of us who are non-white and/or Muslim, maybe it'll help to think of the one time the state trooper catches the rapist, the murderer, or the terrorist because he's profiling.
Or maybe not. Still gonna happen.
08/17/09
08/17/09
[www.youtube.com]
08/17/09
None of this shit has made me feel safer. It is intimidation to me--the same shit the plainclothes cops do that park on the streets in my neighborhood. I still hear shots in the night. I fear gangs and the police. I fear crazy zealots and homeland security.
08/17/09
(Dumb) people say the same thing to/about rape victims, and it's just bullshit.
08/17/09
08/17/09
Oh, wait, I know. They did it for free.
Everybody wins!
(I know, it's all fun and games until someone gets lost in rendition.)
08/17/09
08/17/09
07/29/09
07/29/09
07/29/09
You have the right to remain deferential.
07/29/09
07/29/09
By the way, a correction: Crowley was not investigating a burglary. He was investigating a possible burglary. He saw almost immediately that there was no burglary in progress.
07/29/09
Speak it like you live it, Mister Secretary.
07/29/09
07/29/09
07/29/09
But I don't think you were going for a lucid analogy so much as expressing a desire to hold Powel accountable for any role he may have played in persecuting the war in Iraq. There's an intelligent debate to be had about that. Alas, that's a battle I don't want to choose right now.
07/29/09
Thanks, but I'll stick with my main point, which is that the case for war in Iraq is the starkest case of racial profiling I can think of in my lifetime. At a time when any raghead would do, the administration chose the most convenient target, the dude who'd been looking at us cross-eyed ever since we'd taken him off the payroll, never mind that absolutely no credible case could be made with the available evidence that Iraq posed any threat to us whatever. To extend the metaphor, which I think is very lucid, Colin Powell is the corrupt cop who plants a gun on the unarmed victim, except that he did it after the fact, with millions watching, at the UN.
That's what he gets to live with. He should keep his mouth shut about racial profiling.
07/29/09
As for Powell, he's a cop-out and blew all the credibility he has ever earned in a lifetime of service in about twenty minutes at the UN. He can't pick a wall paper pattern without the world second-guessing him now. I wish that were enough to exact revenge on those responsible for the approximately 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties this war has created (not to mention the psychological, cultural, and material costs). I'm a skeptic, so I have a hard time believing that anything could have stopped Cheney and his cabal of neocons from knocking down the gates of Babylon.
07/29/09
07/29/09
....and somehow the Gawker gods saw it fit to randomly change my avatar to an Onion character just now. How bizarre. Is it a sign?
07/29/09
07/29/09
Edit: Okay, back to the Onion character again. Just a cruel cosmic joke, I guess. Where's a Jewish grandma to cheer me up when I need one?
07/29/09
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07/29/09
07/29/09
Side note: What's with all the purple people being thrown in with the lists of races? Purple people have been mentioned a bunch of times, yet they are so rare in this country that I may only have seen as few as half a dozen in my life.
07/29/09
07/29/09
07/29/09
I'd be glad someone cared enough to check to see why someone may be breaking in to my house. Next time, just let everyone break in. Then they'll be called racist for not responding promptly to a reported break in. They both acted out of line but if Gates had just not lost his "shit" the issue would have been OVER. He acted like a hothead and no one wants to admit it.
07/29/09
In addition to obtaining the ID of the resident with his own picture on it, of course.
07/29/09
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07/29/09
He lost his shit because the cop wouldn't leave. If you just came back from a long trip, was sick and just wanted to go lie down and be alone, and the stranger in your house wouldn't leave, then yeah, I bet you'd lose your shit.
07/29/09
Voice dissent? Here's your cell.
07/29/09
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07/29/09
Example, a cop is sitting at the counter of a restaurant. He sees a customer standing and shouting at a waitress. The cop goes over and tells the guy that he has to stop or he will be arrested. The customer then very politely says in a normal tone of voice, "I'm sorry, officer, but she made a mistake on my order." No pissing match with the cop. Then he turns around and continues to shout at the waitress. Do you think he's not going to jail because he was polite to the cop and rude to a waitress that the cop doesn't even know? Of course he is locking the asshole customer up. He has an obligation to protect that waitress as well as the peace of other parties in the restaurant. Now, why would you think that the cop would have to take more crap himself than he would allow to be aimed at the people who he is sworn to protect?
Shouting at a waitress in a restaurant is not protected speech and neither is shouting at a cop on your porch.
07/29/09
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