Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jan 2001
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2001 St. Petersburg Times
Contact:  490 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Website: http://www.sptimes.com/
Forum: http://www.sptimes.com/Forums/ubb/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi
Author: Fernando Ojeda
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n028/a09.html

IT'S EASY TO BULLY THE VOICELESS

I wish to respond to two letters concerning support of governmental racial 
profiling (The targeting of certain suspects makes sense and If the profile 
fits, Jan. 5). I want to determine if the letter writers are sincere in 
their posture.

Most white-collar crimes are committed by affluent, professional, white 
males. They often commit their crimes in their corporate environments. 
Knowing this, should we support random sieges (by federal agents) into the 
corporate world, seizure of computers, documents, etc., in order to find 
potential perpetrators of corporate crimes?

Every so often we have cases of random violence that seem to follow a 
pattern. A loner, disgruntled by some perceived or real injustice, arms 
himself with semiautomatic weapons and handguns and goes to an office 
building, a high school cafeteria or a McDonald's and opens fire on 
innocent people. More often than not they are white males. Do we create a 
racial profile and begin confiscating guns from homes?

Of late, we have had a share of unethical and criminal activity engaged in 
by judges, mostly male and white. Do we create a profile for these 
individuals and arrest them arbitrarily while we search for possible 
indiscretions and/or criminal activities?

Miami has had a rash of cases of corrupt police officers dealing in illegal 
activities tied to drug trafficking. Will there be a profile created to 
intercept future cases of corruption in the force? How about the abuses of 
taxpayers' contributions by the Pentagon as it supports illegally inflated 
contracts by contractors? Where's that profile?

The point I'm trying to make here is that the letter writers find it easy 
and convenient to bully those individuals in society who are voiceless, who 
have no political clout, people who can be trampled upon indiscriminately. 
I wonder if they would afford the same level of tolerance to the 
governmental infringement into the lives of the powerful, the rich or white 
males in general. Would they support this infringement based on a 
predetermined profile? If they do, I applaud them. If they don't, I simply 
have to conclude that their posture is corrupt and hypocritical.

Fernando Ojeda, Dunedin
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