Even those of us who have already assumed government agencies to be operating in such capacities and beyond through the NSA, Homeland Security, CIA, etc, would be lying if we were to remark that we were not ourselves shaken in the same way that a 17-year old teen finally catches his mother swapping out his last missing tooth for a $10 dollar bill under his pillow. GOTCHA!
In our constitution, we are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures. Without probably cause, it is nothing short of treason for government entities to violate that protection. So yes, national discourse has begun on what is to many a very new infringement by authority on the people. Meanwhile, many "other" people have one thing to say to these alarmed newbies: where you been?
New York's stop and frisk policies have existed for nearly a decade. The policy grants police authorities the right stop someone without probable cause, unless, of course, you consider skin color and fashion sense to be criteria for probable cause.
For the past couple of years, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have been systemically profiled, stopped, and frisked in the mayor's attempt to get guns off streets.
The problem? You do not have to be committing a crime, or guilty of anything, for an officer to decide that he wants to have you place your hands against the wall, spread your legs, and pat you down.
Blacks and Latinos make up approximately 85% of the "suspects" that are targeted for these stops. The communities targeted are predominantly low-income, predominantly minority, and predominantly immigrant.
Further, of the more than 500,000 stops just last year, less than 0.5% ended up culling guns from the hands of these dark skinned, hardened criminals. Despite the disproportionate targeting of minorities, whites that were stopped had a higher rate of commuting with guns or contraband.
This is a policy that has afflicted low-income, minority communities in New York for far too long now. Authorities in New York have patently infringed on the liberties of a demographic that doesn't have the economic, political, or social leverage of wealthier, better networked, and (to be blunt) white communities.
Now that the latter has to deal with the effects of having their 4th amendment disavowed, the nation is in an uproar and those with social-economic clout are going to make a point to challenge the government and be heard. Hopefully this outrage isn't applied selectively. Hopefully we have the wisdom to observe that the 4th amendment is not meant to be carefully applied to one class and denied to another.
I recall a scholar and a gentlemen (shall we call him Slim Shady) once expressed this willful ignorance most of us as Americans remain comfortable with until it becomes a problem that we have to deal with ourselves. In controversial lyrics, addressing the national outrage and sadness of the horrendous Columbine High school massacre, he opines on a contradiction seen between inner cities staggered with routine violence as nothing unusual in contrast to middle-class communities that get catapulted into CNN specials and national spotlights:
"And look where it's at; Middle America, now it's a tragedy, now its so sad to see; an upper class city having this happening."
You know I'm getting serious when I resort to my conscious rap antics. And that is not to add humor to a terrible consequence of policy and an ashamedly unconcerned public.
To be frank, Americans don't care what is happening as long as it's not to them. A few big Tea Party conservative names were promoting New York's stop and frisk policy, some suggesting to expand it into profiling Arabs as well. Curtailing civil liberties of others sounds brilliant until you have to live with the consequences too.
For all the criticism Marshall Matthers receives, I believe he had one thing right. When you make this an issue that effects the middle-class, what was once considered inconsequential to everyone else becomes superlative and dangerous, of pandemic proportions.
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