A take on Racial Profiling: Essay from a Reader

     Today, as part of my odious daily commute through midtown, I passed by the ABC News recording studio. A group of approximately 20 men were protesting outside. Each held a sign reading “I am Puerto Rican. I am not a drug dealer.” Similarly, they were chanting “We’re Puerto Rican. We don’t sell drugs.” I overheard other pedestrians talking about how ABC had recently been racially profiling Puerto Ricans in some of their news pieces and that this was likely what the group of men were protesting. Without even knowing the specifics of their protest, I felt offended and irritated. I am half Puerto Rican and bristle at the notion that I may therefore be half-felon. 

     This event led me to think more seriously about the issue of racial profiling on my way home from work. It’s something I’ve always had mixed feelings about largely because the almost too-logical argument behind it runs up against our country’s rather awful history of treating people of color as subhuman. For those who are unclear, the general argument I refer to is as follows: If the person who committed a crime is known to be [insert ethnicity here], the police should question/detain/look out for people who are [insert ethnicity] and who match the rest of the profile. The same principles are used in airports, for example, to help police identify possible terror suspects. The idea is that this will somehow narrow down the pool of suspects or streamline a screening process. 

     My instinct has always been to say that racial profiling is fine. Generally. It is here, however, that I feel it necessary to point out that although I am half-Puerto Rican, I present as white. Very white, to be precise. This has made it rather difficult to claim my heritage in the eyes of other people, but it also means that I have not been, and never will be, subject to any form of racial profiling. I will continue to go through life having never been stopped at an airport, detained in a subway or questioned on my way home from work. In essence, I am ethnic without the burden of my ethnicity. I realized with a certain clarity today that my unease with taking the position of “I-guess-it-makes-sense” stems from the fact that it is a position of complacency and that at the end of the day, ‘racial profiling’ doesn’t actually mean ‘racial profiling’. If it did, I would be detained and questioned along with all the other Puerto Ricans. I am not. I never have been.

     The question we should be asking ourselves here is not “is racial profiling ok?”. If we consider the above anecdote, we should be asking ourselves a very different sort of question - what does a Puerto Rican man look like? If someone came up to you and informed you that a tall Puerto Rican man in his mid twenties had just robbed them, who would you look for? This description can be easily applied to up to half of New York City’s men, and so what it really means is “someone who wasn’t white robbed me.” If you disagree with that assertion, I would encourage you to consider how you would distinguish a Puerto Rican man from a man who is Dominican, South American, Armenian, Lebanese or any of the other ethnicities that are so easily lumped together. 

     The ultimate problem with racial profiling is that it reduces individuals to little more than their skin color. We have no way of knowing if the individual in a news report is actually Puerto Rican. While such specificity may seem like a kind of progress (at least they’re not just calling him “black”, right??), it is the opposite. This kind of language implicates all people of color because “Puerto Rican” is a meaningless descriptor when we speak of a person’s physical attributes. You may know what type of music your perpetrator might like, what foods he might prefer or even which languages he speaks with his mom, but you still have no idea what he looks like. The only thing you know is that he is not white, and therefore any man of color might be that same guy waiting to jump out and snatch your wallet.

The implications of this are obvious. If any man of color is potentially a criminal, the resulting sense of fear and impulse towards ‘othering’ creates an even wider rift between racial communities throughout the country. When you combine this with the statistics that show that minority communities tend to be more heavily concentrated in impoverished areas, it should not come as a surprise that these areas are some of the hardest to change. When everyone on the street lives in mutual fear of one another, there can be no form of social contract. There can be no progress.
     While the protest was comprised entirely of men, and while it is true that men commit an overwhelming majority of reported crimes, it is worth mentioning that this is a women’s issue as well. As I looked at the men protesting today, it occurred to me that they are all men who, as my mother often puts it, ‘set off my spidey senses’. They are men who you might see in a public service announcement, men who I might avoid when walking home alone at night and men who I would expect to harass me on the street if my clothes are in any way provocative. I studied their faces intently to remind myself that the way we are taught to perceive men of color is unjust and largely incorrect. These were all well-meaning people who clearly came from a variety of backgrounds and professions. Had I encountered any of these men under different circumstances however, I am certain I would not have been wondering about their families or what kind of job they had.

     This blog has a rather obvious progressive slant, and so I’ll end by saying that this isn’t the kind of issue with an immediate answer - the solution is a little more vague and gradual than that. We could end the practice of racial profiling today and the problematic assumptions made about people of color would continue to exist. It is thus the responsibility of progressives (or really anyone who doesn’t want to be a terrible person, however accidentally) to be self-aware enough to recognize when our assumptions, or the assumptions of other people, are unwarranted. We cannot feel secure if everyone around us is a potential threat and we cannot achieve any measure of social equality when some people are ‘safer’ than others.

New York, and why I love it

The most important physical battlegrounds in the war for our country are our cities. Of course, cities are supposedly bastions of liberalism. All over the country, even the reddest of states show circles of blue surrounded by seas of red. And yet, over the past  decades the political culture in cities has been channeled away from progressivism and towards corporatism. The genetic makeup of the country is increasingly split between cultural country-conservatism/economic liberalism and the  pop-culture conservatism/economic corporatism of the cities. Nowhere has the shift been seeing more of them in my home, New York City. It is still one of the more artistically and socially progressive places in the country, at least on the East Coast. And the rise of the Corporation has seen New York become one of the economic capitals of the world. Yet even in this world of artisinial cocktails, hedge fund offices, and the police force with more firepower than many countries standing armies, the promise of progressivism still holds great sway. Without New York City you can be sure the recent progress concerning gay marriage would not of been introduced, let alone passed, by the New York State Senate. The big playhouses may put out the same  bland corporate system drivel night after night, there is still progressive art of all sorts all over the city-at least as progressive as art in America gets. The pursestrings may be held by the corporatists, but the city still bleeds progressivism. This is a city unlike any other in America: A city of dreams, a city of immigrants, and, especially in the recession, a city where you can make something out of seemingly nothing.

New York City is still one of the few cities that still really matter. With the rise of the Internet, with corporate headquarters moving from big cities to low tax rural zones, with increased normalcy of suburban sprawl, and of course with the increased loss of industrial economic backbone of the country (replaced by the much more mobile corporate backbone), cities are losing their pride of place in America. But not New York, at least not yet. 

 The response to the corporatization of our cities from the left is varied of course, the general response has been at least a desire to flee. The American left in particular often  gives a very Therovian response to this kind of situation, throwing up their arms and self determining themselves out of whatever den of vipers they currently see themselves in.  That response is a selfish and self-defeating as it was 150 years ago. Running away from the problem, “preferring not” may sound very appealing. After all, what liberal doesn’t  have some sort of desire to run off into the woods and live in  commune with nature? But it is an incredibly selfish and cowardly choice. The underwritten rule of democracy is that the most active citizens will have the greatest  chance to shape the future direction of the country. Yes, that has been polluted by the increased corporate control over society in general and our politics specifically. But running off into the forest isn't going to help anyone except yourself. You may not be able to live your idyllic pastoral fantasies in the rat-race, but you’re never going to change anything with your head in the sand. 

Progressive democracy’s central tenet is the importance of collective action.  I remember a month or so ago on the Rachel Maddow show, Congressman Barney Frank  defined democratic government as what happens when people come together to do something we cannot do on our own. I would expand on that to say that the definition of democratic society not just government. And the important word there is “we.”  We, as a peoples, come together. We are not subjects, obligated to do something. We are not slaves, ordered to do something. We are citizens, each individually choosing to behave collectively. That is the purpose of democracy. And there is no greater place where collective action can be actualized than in a modern democratic city. Fleeing our cities is nothing short of handing over the natural centers of progressivism to the corporatists.

We’ve seen, in 2011, citizens from cities all over the world rise in collective, progressive action. The global economic meltdown has created a crack in the corporatist’s armor. Their “new normal” has been deemed unacceptable, and about time too. This seemingly pacified masses declared that enough is enough. This movement began to be nationalized-or should that be internationalized-in New York. That is no coincidence. Forget Iraq or Afghanistan, it is on the streets of New York that we, as Americans and citizens of a global world, fight for our freedom. This is the front line. If New York’s progressive spirit is stamped out by corporatism then the malaise of plutocratic capitalism will have this nation in a stranglehold.

The next few years will be incredibly shaping for our country, and even more so for the city of New York. This recession could easily be a death knell for local control, collective action, and progressivism. The corporatist would like nothing more than to use the economic downturn push government “austerity”, to crush any attempt at collective action, to replace locally owned businesses with their cookie-cutter Pottervilles.

But it does not have to be that way. We have a chance to reinvigorate our democracy. To preach the gospel of personal responsibility and collective action. We must stand with our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. We must stand with our brothers and sisters in Cairo, Moscow, and London. In the words of Slavoj Zizek  “we may not identify with the specifics of their individual lives,  But we identify with their struggle.” This is our world, and we, the citizens of that world, must be ready to claim it. 

And we make our stand in the cities, most of all here in New York. The old “if you can make it here you can make it anywhere” may not be true in general politically. But it is certainly true that without New York, is extremely unlikely that progressivism will spread in America. Once again, sorry Therovian liberals, nobody cares if you can make a “fully functioning” collective action commune out in the hinterlands if all the population centers have gone in an entirely different direction. Progressivism is not a philosophy for the few who have the time, money, and inclination to opt out, it is for us all. It must be here in New York, in the cities, that we make our stand. And it must begin now. We do not decide the time we live in and we have the same choice that all creatures must face, to fight or to flee. If your progressivism goes beyond the confines of your personal day-to-day choices there’s nothing else you can do but fight. And that’s why I love New York, because it’s all happening right here. And there’s some delicious food

The Plan for the New Year

So, this is the second time I've posted a plan for how I'm going to operate this blog in the coming months. Last time, I came up with a new plan and then, instead, continued to follow my previous schedule of posting articles mostly randomly, about once a week. But this time I'm going to stick to the plan I'm laying out.


December turned out to be a very good month for my thespainic activities but not such a good month for posting to the blog. I have a lot of stuff written out and, thanks to my wonderful parents, now have some dictation software to make 'typing' up those essays much easier. I will endeavor to make my postings here more frequent


My current plan is to try to do at least two postings a week, on Tuesdays and Thursday. Sometimes I will make additional postings. I will also try to provide more thoughts / snippets via twitter.


In the new year I also hope to expand the blog not only in terms of my own postings, but also in terms of readership. If you read a blog posting that you really like (or really hate) pass it along to a friend. If you have a specific response to something I say, please comment. And, as I've said before, if anyone wants to write a posting of their own for me to post on here, please shoot me off an email (the parrhesianprogressive@gmail.com) and I will be more than happy to post it here.


So, happy new year, it sure looks to be an interesting one.

The Season of Giving

Its the ‘holiday’ season, which means its time for most Americans to spend lots of money. On presents, on food, on travel, whatever you like. At the root of all of this buying is supposed to be the idea of giving. Giving is also one of the key tenets of any Progressive political agenda to the extent that living a Progressive lifestyle is a commitment to personal giving. We believe that government should be of and for the people, but that does not diminish the profound impact that an individual’s actions can have. There are many types of giving, but I want to concentrate on the most popular way, monetary giving. 

We live in a capitalist system and denying the great impact money has over our lives and society would be about as delusional as one can get. The most basic form of giving is donation, giving without receiving something material back (beyond a super cool button, t-shirt, or bumper sticker). As soon as someone begins to having some disposable income, they should try to save at least a small percentage of it to donate. Give within your means, of course, but give. Pick an organization you support and work in giving them a dollar a day, a dollar a week, a dollar a month. Odds are, if you’re reading this, you can probably afford one of those options. From birth, materialism teaches us that spending money is a means to a personal end. The progressive response must be to try to spend money in support of  causes rather than a products. Think of it as a ‘I wish my tax dollars went to support x‘ option task. If you do not have a specific cause you want to support, lend a hand to support independent, publicly controlled media. Supporting old-steadies like NPR and PBS are fine ideas, but also look into the wide range of (more truly) Liberal podcasts like The Majority Report, The Best of the Left, or The David Packman Show among others. Or give to your friendly cyberhood political blogger :). 

In a capitalist system we (at least the 99%) spend most of our money through purchasing products. Every dollar that we spend can be seen as an endorsement of the merchandise we are buying and a rejection of its competitor. When its 8 in the morning and I’m craving a bacon egg, and cheese, I head to a cart a few blocks away from me rather than stopping at any of the delis on the way. Why? Because I have a somewhat inexplicable love of street food. I drink Pepsi rather than Coke partially because of the baseball teams they endorse. I will always pick a green toothbrush if given a choice. Always.

We make value judgements with our purchases every day. It is important to understand just how much power your dollar, and thus, that judgement, can have. Let your socio-political beliefs consciously influence where your money goes. This may mean buying organic food, not supporting companies that have ongoing labour disputes, or choosing to shop at a local business rather than the nearest Walmart. Above all it means making more of your decisions consciously thought out, including your humanitarian and political beliefs in that decision making process. 

Once again, this does not have to be just for liberals. After all, there’s very little easier in America than to use your purchasing powers to support gigantic multinational corporations. If that’s your politics, go ahead, make some investments in Canadian Oil Sands and buy the biggest cars you can find to help burn that gas. The only thing required to start using your purchasing power to further your political goals is a little work. Transparency is still the exception to the rule, but you can still find a bit of background information on almost anything you buy. Spend even half an hour a week clicking around the web and you will find yourself fantastically more informed than you were before. If you are reading this blog, odds are you can find that kind of time. The adage that in a capitalist system we vote with our dollar is absolutely true. December, when we are likely to be spending more of our money than usual on nonessentials, is the perfect time to remember that. 

The Demise of Cain

The Herman Cain presidential bid is over. At first glance, it collapsed under the weight of seemingly endless allegations of sexual misconduct. But a closer look will uncover a slightly different set of events. After all, though the previous allegations may have distracted Cain from his intent to only talk about 9-9-9, it is hard to blame his dip in the polls on them. In many ways, particularly in terms of fundraising, being accused of sexual harassment (or, really, being accused of being accused of sexual harassment) actually helped the pizza mogul. Cain lost ground in the polls not because people began to fear him as a seemingly-serial sexual harasser, but because they are beginning to understand that, sex scandals aside, he is completely unprepared for the job he was supposedly pursuing. But, according to the story that the mainstream media spun, it was this affair which finally made him unfit for the presidency. So, what is different about (the perfectly named) Ginger White? 

If you listen to those same media outlets, it would appear that White had a lot more proof of Cain’s dalliances than the other women. The many late night phone calls, for example, have received a lot of attention.  While yes, that does seem like some good evidence, it can hardly be seen as more convincing than knowledge of the existence of settlements for multiple women. The proof surrounding the seven (or more) accusations of sexual harassment was just as strong, if not stronger, than Ginger White’s. 

In many ways this most recent ‘scandal’ shouldn’t have as much impact on Cain politically. There is no indication that his affair with Ginger White impacted his job in any way, while all of the sexual harassment certainly did. This affair was a completely consensual, legal, and private unlike the nonconsensual, illegal, public reports of sexual harassment. 

Of course, it should come as no surprise that an extra-marital affairs has brought about the end of another political career. Ethics violations, treasonous statements, and war crimes are all acceptable baggage, but non-normative sex certainly is not. From Bill Clinton to Tiger Woods to (until recently that is) Newt Gingrich, public figures are brought down for having consensual sex at an alarming rate. Rather than looking at the plethora of the ‘scandals’ as proof that we need to seriously re-evaluate the institution of marriage and our devotion to preaching strict monogamy, they continue to be used as grounds to attack every level of the ‘transgressor’s’ character. The lesson of the Herman Cain scandals are, after all, much more about how our media and how we as a nation react to sexual harassment than to sex itself. It is no surprise that a consensual sexual affair should be considered legitimate grounds to destroy a career.

But why is the reaction to the, in my mind and before the law, far more serious allegation of sexual harassment so different? Well, there are two specific reasons, both of which point out the ingrained sexism of our culture. The first is that the ‘accusers’ (not victims) are immediately look at as over-sensitive, gold-diggers, or both. Our media and our politics still propagates the myth that the most trustworthy person is the highest ranking (usually white) male. If you step back and think for a second, is it really all that surprising that the usually vicious men who gain positions of extreme economic or political power treat their female underlings without respect? Of course not. And yet, whenever stories like this are breached, the media seems to always take the side of the much-maligned Boss against his ‘accuser.’ And that’s true in America even if the Boss is French. 

The second reason is the more insidious one, and it is the claim that the entire idea of sexual harassment is, for the most part, a farce. From winks by the boss to shouts on the street, the idea that being actively objectified is a compliment rather than an affront is one held by a great number of men and, scarily enough, women. How can we expect our society to respond negatively to harassers when it has such a culturally conservative attitude in it? Accepting this kind of treatment as complementary, or even just natural automatically places all women in a different sphere from men. Whether this belief is accepted or tolerated because we’re all sexists or because we don’t fully understand its implications I don’t know, but if we are to truly overcome the cultural history of sexism it cannot be tolerated. 

Perhaps we have begun to devolve back into the morality of the past centuries. Perhaps we never really grew out of it. But this sexism, alive and well in twenty first century America. Women, as a group, must still be classified as a minority. Being a minority is not just about how many of you there are, its about having the minority of power. Its about time everybody admits to themselves that women are facing the same types of barriers to shifting that balance that they always have, barriers that may have been slightly weakened, but which still hold a particular protected place in the American-–and global––mindset.