From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Wed Jul 27 2005 - 01:26:34 BST
Hey Sam,
On 26 Jul 2005 at 5:31, Sam Norton wrote:
<snip some agreement>
However, would you think this equally objectionable (said to me back
in March by DMB): " I mean, its not that I hate christians or
theists, I just think they're wrong. Only crooked toothed, tea
drinking, fish and chips eater like you could suggest that bigotry
has anything to do with it. (I'm actually having trouble coming up
with English sterotypes for this joke, but you get the idea. ) "
http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/14084.html
The thing is, I do have crooked teeth, I drink an awful lot of tea, and
after two weeks in Asia I was dying for some fish and chips. And I also
thought it was quite funny (I find DMB funny a lot of the time). Is this
also racist? Where do we draw the boundaries? Is it just a question of
taking offence - in other words, if I had taken offence at DMB, would that
in itself have made the remarks racist?
msh 7-26-05:
Well, lets look at the situations, as the context of the remarks are
all-important. The exchange between you and dmb, more or less
friendly rivals for a number of years, involved some tweaking of the
Brits, for the purpose of making a valid point. David's American,
you're British, so there's a friendly, funny poke.
The context of the offensive remark under criticism is quite
different. The exchange occurred between two reactionary, white,
American jingoists. The comment was gratuitous, not illuminating, and
certainly not funny, at least not to anyone with a post-pubescent
sense of humor.
sam 7-26-05
I think the underlying concern I have is that bringing in the assertion of
racism _can_ generate more heat than light.
msh 7-26-05:
I, for one, think the light-heat metaphor has had its play on this
list, and should be retired to the vault of once-sacred cliches. If
we are to survive and evolve as a species, we need both intelligence
AND passion, and to fight hateful ignorance WITH passion where ever
we encounter it
sam 7-26-05
But quite possibly I still have racist elements in my own thinking.
msh 7-26-05:
We all do, which is all the more reason for passionate vigilance.
sam 7-26-05
For example, I think a strong argument can be made for racial
profiling when assessing potential bomb threats. Perhaps we could
focus on that?
msh 7-26-05:
I think if your government wants to stop people who fit a particular
racial profile from carrying bombs into the tube then, sure, racial
profiling at the turnstyles is the way to go. I trust you see that
this is not the same thing as stopping terrorist attacks against the
citizens of London and all of England.
Off the top of my head, I can think of three or four ways of getting
someone else to unwittingly carry the bomb for me. And, how about
getting into the tunnels via infrastructural entrances and planting
bombs on the tracks? In New York, many subway trains come to the
surface and even ride elevated rails. How about if a terrorist drops
a downward blast-directed bomb onto the the top of a moving train?
Or stows a dirty radiation bomb in a locker at a busy bus or airport
terminal. Or leaves a briefcase bomb in a crowded restaurant. Or
carries a small fission device in a suitcase and detonates it in his
hotel room. Water supplies could be poisoned; a deadly virus could
be released at a rock concert. The list of possibilities is almost
endless.
The point I hope I'm making is that security alone is not going to
solve the problem, especially as the number of potential terrorists
grows and grows. So, what good is racial profiling, unless you are
willing to lock-up or otherwise 24-7 surveil everyone who matches the
criteria? Even surveillance can tragically fail, as we've just seen
in the fear-driven murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. In short,
racial-profiling is not a rational response to an international
problem created in large part by past and present actions of the UKG
and USG. Your choices are a diplomatic effort to come to terms with
root causes, or use your profile and, borrowing the phrase of a
prominent contributor to this list, "kill 'em all like germs."
Option 2 requires you to check your humanity at the door.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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