On Mon, 03 May 2010 17:03:24 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
>> > 
>> >> >   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the
>> >> >   sense that
>> >> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.
>> > 
>> >> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction
>> >> based on race, whether you want to admit it or not.
>> > 
>> >   On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To
>> >   me
>> > it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.
> 
>> Um, you are, if you say "90% of illegal immigrants are of Hispanic
>> origin, so we should stop people of Hispanic origin in order to ensure
>> they're here legally".  That's the textbook definition of racial
>> profiling.
> 
>   You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
> or less relevant than any other feature.

So are you changing your view?  Otherwise I don't understand the 
statement you made earlier about "if 90% of illegal immigrants are of 
Mexican descent, then you should check them more frequently" (not an 
exact quote, but you did make a statement to that effect).  You are in 
that statement making race *specifically* the *sole* reason for stopping 
someone to ask for proof of citizenship.

>   If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race
>   can
> be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction.

Similarly, you couldn't say "people with black hair should be stopped to 
see if they're illegal immigrants" because the fact that they have black 
hair has no bearing on whether or not they're illegal immigrants or not.

Let's be clear here:  The odds of catching someone as an illegal 
immigrant are statistically low by profiling based on race, hair colour, 
eye colour, or any other physical trait.  It's not like 75/100 of people 
of Hispanic descent in Arizona are illegal immigrants.

The law is very similar to laws enacted in WWII regarding internment of 
people of Japanese descent here in the US.  Or laws concerning the 
identification of slaves in early US history that were based on skin 
colour (because in general, if you were black, you were a slave).

>   Or in other words, I'm not hypersensitive about talking about race, as
> so many other people seem to be. To me it's just as incosequential as a
> subject as hair or eye color.
> 
>   If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race,
>   and
> you really want to call it "racial profiling", then I suppose I can't
> stop you. It's just that the term "racial profiling" is always used in a
> very negative sense, like it was a thousand times more outrageous than
> making a statistic based eg. on gender or age groups. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction between them.
> 
>   I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
> where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
> whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
> inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.
> 
>   But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and
>   profiles,
> you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

That's because making a decision about someone's guilt or innocence based 
solely on the colour of their skin is a racist decision.  Period, end of 
story.  What about that don't you understand?

Jim

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