Code Brown

In addition to a great session, seriously in depth, there was a great collection of folks in the "audience." A sign-in sheet was circulated, and I really hope we will make a connection. As an organization  working on racial profiling at the local and state level in a state slow to change, we really need to know what has worked/is working in other states and regions.

Thanks for all y'all do. 

Larry Yates

Virginia Organizing Project

llyates@shentel.net

www.virginia-organizing.org

Notes; Recap
www.racewire.org

Tram: The topics today are broadly about national security and racial profiling and to understand the broad overview and policy work versus the grassroots work.

Deepa: On the ground: what’s happened to people after Sept. 11th?
Different ways people have been impacted after 9/11-
Public Actions:
-    Backlash against South Asians, Muslims, Arab Americans, those that may be perceived as a member of these groups
o    Hate Crimes: 650 incidents reported in media within one week after 9/11/01.
-    Traveling while Brown: People that were asked to be removed from flights because others felt uncomfortable having them on the plane
-    Employment/Education/Public Accommodation: Workplace discrimination, “Muslim complaints” in the workplace. Sikh men with turbans or Muslim women wearing Hijab were not allowed to enter restaurants because of their dress.
Government Actions (Policy)
-    Within two weeks after 9/11: interim rule mandated that the govt had the authority to detain individuals without due process.
-    “Voluntary” Interviews for men of color
-    Alien absconder initiative: Starting with Middle Eastern people and other Muslim communities
-    Special Registration: late 2001, men 16+ years of age from pre-dominantly Muslim countries were told to report to local INS authorities. Families broken apart, children not having parents, bread-winners in the family were deported.

Aziz: Guantanamo naval base and other international detention facilities had two purposes after 9/11:
(1) to hold people to take them outside of the domestic border.
(2) to be used as places where interrogations could be conducted outside of the rules of the US law. Officials could then use torture and illegal detention strategies.
- Legal cases culminated in 2004 in the US Supreme Court- no federal court had the power to hear a prisoner’s case if they were held in Guantanamo (whether or not they were held by force or for real criminal activity). Because of this, we are faced with considerable negative ramifications for the US justice system. In order to hide these issues, the consequences for detainees were:
- they are diverted to other facilities (“Black Sites”: people who were held there were either shot)
- they were disseminated to other “ally” jails,
- they were sent back to Guantanamo Bay.
The government has been able to argue that there is no longer jurisdiction in these areas and that the people in Guantanamo no longer have rights or US protection. What rights do they have then? The displacement of people has been going on since 2002, and because of the government’s ability to evade or relocate prisoners the people that are detained without any reason have been sitting in some jail for the last five years without due process.

Roberto: The case of Jose Padilla or the “bad” immigrant.
Intersections of the war on drugs and the war on terror: the “Al-Qaeda-zacion” of Latino population.
People of Salvadorian origin were accused of being part of terrorist organizations in the 1980s. Now it is the same thing for South Asians and for Arab Americans and Muslims. It does not effect just these populations now- it is a larger system to attack Latinos as well.


A national security state has a perpetual need for ENEMIES: the construction of different types of “bad guys”.
The war on drugs: “Criminal Blackness”. Jose Padilla and gangsis the symbol of  the grand marriage between the war on drugs and the war on terror. Padilla is used to understand the differences between Latino “badness” and Latino “goodness”. 50% of Latinos are checking off the “white” box. 50% of Latinos want to assimilate. The flirtation with whiteness and nation state identity is what furthers the difference between the “good” and the “bad”.
“Crimmigration laws”: immigration policy interlinked with criminal law.
Halliburton constructs immigrant prisons: immigration industrial complex

Q&A:
Tram: Racial Profiling: “Driving while Black/Brown”, “Standing while Asian”, “Flying while Arab” are popular media images. What happened to the racial profiling debate? Where do we stand now? Where is the political will in the debate? Does the fact that we have lost steam around racial profiling relate to the division of racial groups in the US?

Deepa; Personally I feel there isn’t political will to engage in this debate. The public doesn’t buy in to the idea that racial profiling is a bad thing. Special Registration is a salient demonstration of racial profiling that does not seem like it will go away with this administration. I don’t have a lot of optimism.
Roberto: I have a lot of optimism, but not around racial profiling. The primary function of a national security state is to create “bad guys”. They want to keep the debate about legalization, while concealing the fact that deportation and detention as also part of the agenda
We are all going to start taking the position like W.E.B. Dubois. This goes beyond the Democrat; we are going further LEFT than ever imagined, and this is where I’m optimistic. We are now facing a discourse of “good” versus “bad” immigrants; and further “good” versus “bad” people of color.

Aziz: Two different constructions of race: fear defined by certain understandings of who poses a threat for national security around racial and religious lines.
-    9/11 hijackers: “infected” the body by a trace element. The 19 hijackers contaminated or rendered impure the millions of people that come through the borders each year.
-    The second construction of the enemy within- the disloyal element nurtured by the “freedoms” in the US. This type of profiling has been going on since the 1850s; the rise of the anti-catholic movement where there is discrimination against a group that does not look to the US govt, but rather to the Pope.

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A comment, expanding on what I said during Q&A at the workshop. 

Our local communities are another arena on this issue, and an arena where we can definitely have some impact. In Virginia, we are finding that local NAACP branches, for example, are willing to take on this issue at the face to face local level, and that we can start to see cross-ethnic coalitions. We know that at the other end, local law enforcement is under increased pressure from the feds to become part of the national security state; in Virginia, this manifests itself both in efforts to get local enforcement of immigration laws, and in tempting locals with funding for gang enforcement largely targeting Latinos. Of course, "driving while Black" continues to be an issue; I am not idealizing local departments, just saying that to some extent they still have and still want their traditional measure of independence. 

My point is that local law enforcement still is somewhat susceptible to local politics and local action. We all need to support national groups that are defending us against the national security state. But, for most of us, it seems to me the most effective role we can play is to exercise whatever influence we can, in coalition, over local law enforcement, to maximize its accountability to real people on the ground rather than its adherence to a national security state ideology/mission.

Larry Yates

Virginia Organizing Project

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