Then you do live in an interesting place, but in truth, you have to admit that life is not like that in most places. Here in Toronto, one of the most mullticultural cities in the world, which is supposed to be more race blind (we're Canadians, eh?) we've run into enough bad situations involving non-whites for me to understand that when I say things are good, I might be being a little unthinkingly disingenouous. Our police department (an outfit of whom I think very highly, by the way) received a not so great grade in the area of profiling. Their response to the report was that "It doesn't happen." We also have a lot of African Canadians etc in the police, but you know what? They can profile too. And the interesting thing is that they don't reverse profile, they profile just the same as white officers.

The truth is that in most places, a member of a visible minority will have very different expectations in their dealings with authority that we do. I doubt it would require too extensive research to understand why. History is what it is.

>Here in my area, approximately half of my co-workers, neighbors, friends, and yes, even the police force is African American. Our area is a combination of miltiary, rural, and metropolitan areas. We are served by the military police, the sheriff's department, the city police of Fayetteville and Hope Mills, as well as state troopers. I'd say the odds are equal in my area for both races. We also have a large Native American population (almost everyone from this area is descended from either Cherokee or Lumbee Indians). You can pretty much assume that any police office that stops you will be of African American descent, Native American, or yes, even Latino. A large number of those listed as caucasions in this area are actually Lumbee indian. Fayetteville city mayor is African American too by the way. The provencial rural, white, prejudiced male is a minority. My step-daughter received a scholarship to Fayetteville State University as a minor (she is caucasion).
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>Fayetteville State University
>Breakdown of Full-Time Undergraduate Population
> African-American 82%
> American Indian / Alaska Native 1%
> Asian American 1%
> Caucasian 12%
> Hispanic American 3%
> International 0%
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>>>>>That is a a very interesting experience. Talk about deja vu. I have seen handguns on police since I can remember here in the U.S. Yet, it REALLY surprised me when in the 80s I went to Germany (as well as a few other countries) and there were armed police on airport roofs. Now that was scary! I had never seen that before. It was also very intimidating to be stopped by police for any reason. Here we have a reasonable expectation of fair and respectful treatment - not the case everywhere else.
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>>>>I don't suppose you'd like to discuss that point of view with Rodney King?
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>>>What an unnecessarily snide remark. There are so many factors other than race as to whether there is an expectation of fair and respectful treatment. Race can be a factor, but for you to use that as a basis for a rebuttal in this case is very close minded. We live in a very big country, with many types of people in many types of socio-economic situations. It's not always about just race.
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>>Of course it's not always about race, but what on earth has that to do with the far less hopeful expectations that non-caucasians have in their dealings with police. As caucasians we have a tendency to see things in a way that others might not and to forget that our expectations are not everybody's expectations. I don't think it's snide, I think its' realistic. It's easy for us as caucasians to talk about how great things are.
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>>It's no different than going for a job. When I was living in Alberta, we had a very large native population, and I heard more than one department manager say unequivocally that he'd never hire an 'Indian'. I have certain expectations of fair treatment in a job interview as well as any dealings with the police. Others do not have those same expectations. So saying that things are good here is easy when you don't have to suffer the opposite treatment.