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Been away from the States for a while. Just got back. Feeling a little pensive. Was really inspired and stimulated by the Deaf community in England; realizing I need to get more re-involved with the community in America. So I've been working on that. I've been working on it for a while actually, but now I'm putting more effort into it. I thought the simple fact of working for a Deaf organization would be enough, but the longer I'm here the longer I realize my particular organization has very little involvement in the Deaf community. I don't really have the power to change this, and maybe it shouldn't be changed. I can work at changing myself though.
Politically I've also had to ruminate a bit. I'm not thrilled by the whole DNC speech thing, although I admit Bill Clinton came through with a huge bang. I've just never liked partisanship. I think there are people who vote for people, and people who vote for parties; I prefer to vote for people. If I ever saw a Republican whose values matched mine - and it's come close to happening now and then - I'd probably vote for them. Most Republicans seem to be obtusely short-sighted, however, focusing on short-term and mostly financial gain these days.
One thing that's been on my mind is a story August wrote about with some justified anger. I am also angry about this, but more from a personal and security standpoint. First of all, I've also been racially profiled. Although technically Italian is my darkest skin color (hehehe) I've been stopped and questioned by police. Didn't put in a complaint at the time; it seemed too surreal, and afterwards I realized I hadn't got a name or badge number. So I know how it feels. It's alienating, and a point most people miss is that alienation creates anger, and anger creates... you know.
Secondly, from a general security standpoint, I think racial profiling is pointless. Oh, if you're looking for a specific person, yeah, it's helpful to know their race. BUT - if you don't know what you're looking for, if you're just keeping a general terrorism watch - you have to remember that terrorists can be any color. They're criminals. Criminals can be any color. And in fact, if you watch the news really carefully, we've been catching quite a few white terrorists with bombs, guns, etc. in all parts of our country lately. They don't talk about it in the White House or on the news - I read somewhere because they want to focus attention on the Middle Eastern problem. Of course, this means people like Annie Jacobsen become unneccessarily upset when they see Middle Eastern people. I read her article. It just seemed really paranoid to me. If I saw a white woman staring at me in fear as I boarded a plane, I would not smile happily at her. I would give her the stony look of disdain that she reported. I talked to a couple of my Black friends and they reported similar experiences - white people staring at them, maybe with a look of fear or terror, and what are you supposed to do with that?
I'm afraid that the focus on people with brown skins - who might not be Middle Eastern, you know, just kind of brown - is going to put us at risk from the people with white skins. Who seem to be doing plenty of terrorising lately. Just saying. Me, I'm not really gonna be afraid of anyone. What's the point? Ulcer development?
