While these incidents have occurred, the residents of
During the course of the past year, person after person has come forward documenting cases of differential treatment of minorities as opposed to whites. African American students came out in masse several times to complain about racial profiling incidents where students have been repeatedly pulled over by the police for no apparent reason. The collective response from the majority of
In the meantime, on one of the few occasions when the local chapter of the ACLU spoke out last spring, they were roundly criticized with a series of columns from local columnist Bob Dunning, who, aided by legal advice from the very agencies under fire in the Buzayan case, argued repeatedly that there was no wrongdoing in that case. Who gave him the legal advice? Lawyers for the Davis Police Officer’s Association and Lawyers from the District Attorney’s office—both of whom are being sued by the Buzayan family. That case is currently in federal court and moving towards depositions. And yet people used Dunning’s arguments as reason to dismiss the allegations and exonerate the officer involved.
The degree and heat of the criticism caught local leaders of the ACLU off-guard and they have largely been muted to the other problems. The latest siege on civil rights is occurring right now, quietly, almost unreported in the mainstream press. In October, the HRC met for the first time under new membership. One of their first tasks is to evaluate the 1986 Anti-Discrimination ordinance, after it was brought to the attention of Councilmember Stephen Souza, that the authorizing resolution of the HRC passed earlier, was out of compliance with language in the Anti-Discrimination Ordinance.
At issue is a paragraph that specifically authorizes the HRC to mediate and investigate cases of alleged discrimination.
Section 7A-15(C):
“Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in violation of the provisions of this ordinance may file a request to have the Human Relations Commission investigate and mediate his or her complaint. The Commission may adopt rules of procedure to accommodate the needs of such investigation mediation. A complaint to the Commission shall not be a prerequisite to filing a civil action under this section, and the findings and conclusions of the commission issued in response to such proceedings shall not be admissible in a civil action.”
Unfortunately as is often the case, the only way to make change is to rock the boat. Martin Luther King, Jr is a hero to most Americans but he rocked the boat. Rosa Parks rocked the boat when she refused to give her seat up on a bus. You cannot make changes in society without rocking the boat. No one wants their boat rocked. No one wants their comfortable illusions shattered. But sometimes it is necessary. The HRC learned the hard way that sometimes when you rock the boat, you toss yourself into the rough waters.
Unfortunately it appears that the new HRC has learned this lesson all too well. The preferred solution by the Council seems to be to do away with this section of the ordinance and weaken the protections to the landmark Anti-Discrimination ordinance. And the new HRC appears ready to let them do exactly that. Once again civil rights in
—Doug Paul Davis reporting
History has shown all to well that words on a paper and “laws” do not really offer protection.During the 30s and 40s, Germany, a State where its citizen’s zeal to obey laws was legendary, denied its citizens their ultimate “civil rights” with laws and edicts,all found “legal” by their judiciary. Laws, ordinances and such are just the battle field upon which these civil rights issues are contested.. Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.
History has shown all to well that words on a paper and “laws” do not really offer protection.During the 30s and 40s, Germany, a State where its citizen’s zeal to obey laws was legendary, denied its citizens their ultimate “civil rights” with laws and edicts,all found “legal” by their judiciary. Laws, ordinances and such are just the battle field upon which these civil rights issues are contested.. Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.
History has shown all to well that words on a paper and “laws” do not really offer protection.During the 30s and 40s, Germany, a State where its citizen’s zeal to obey laws was legendary, denied its citizens their ultimate “civil rights” with laws and edicts,all found “legal” by their judiciary. Laws, ordinances and such are just the battle field upon which these civil rights issues are contested.. Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.
History has shown all to well that words on a paper and “laws” do not really offer protection.During the 30s and 40s, Germany, a State where its citizen’s zeal to obey laws was legendary, denied its citizens their ultimate “civil rights” with laws and edicts,all found “legal” by their judiciary. Laws, ordinances and such are just the battle field upon which these civil rights issues are contested.. Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.
“Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.”
That’s kind of the problem I see here. Has the enterprise even reported on the potential re-writing of the anti-discrimination ordinance?
“Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.”
That’s kind of the problem I see here. Has the enterprise even reported on the potential re-writing of the anti-discrimination ordinance?
“Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.”
That’s kind of the problem I see here. Has the enterprise even reported on the potential re-writing of the anti-discrimination ordinance?
“Citizen commitment, zeal and willingness to sacrifice are the only true safeguards.”
That’s kind of the problem I see here. Has the enterprise even reported on the potential re-writing of the anti-discrimination ordinance?
Separate questions here are raised.
First, should what should the form of the HRC be? The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination. As you note, that works as long as the council agrees with the HRC is doing and doesn’t try to reign it in. You say it doesn’t make sense to have an independent HRC–but we often have official bodies that are created to be just that–independent of the power structure in order to monitor. The notion of the Ombudsman is premised on a similar notion of independence in order to perform oversight.
Now I do agree on one point–given what the city has done to the HRC, there is no sense in it continuing and we clearly need an independent body that could do what the original body was supposed to do. I’m not quite willing to give up on the notion just because this council have effectively neutered it.
The second point, I really need to respond in a clear manner. I don’t see Davis as a hotbed of racism anymore than any other community. What I do see is that racism exists and the majority of the people in this city do not have to deal with it on an everday basis and therefore do not see it first hand.
I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people. And whatever is occurring is pervasive for the minority community–very consistent stories and very similar experiences. And it does not seem to matter if you are well-educated university employee, a college student, or someone from a more disadvantaged background. Talking to people who have been in this community for a long time like Desmond Jolly or Bill Calhoun is very enlightening, especially when you compare th stories to stories that some of the younger students tell you. Too many similarities to dismiss.
Again, that does not mean that I think the average person in Davis is a racist. I don’t.
Separate questions here are raised.
First, should what should the form of the HRC be? The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination. As you note, that works as long as the council agrees with the HRC is doing and doesn’t try to reign it in. You say it doesn’t make sense to have an independent HRC–but we often have official bodies that are created to be just that–independent of the power structure in order to monitor. The notion of the Ombudsman is premised on a similar notion of independence in order to perform oversight.
Now I do agree on one point–given what the city has done to the HRC, there is no sense in it continuing and we clearly need an independent body that could do what the original body was supposed to do. I’m not quite willing to give up on the notion just because this council have effectively neutered it.
The second point, I really need to respond in a clear manner. I don’t see Davis as a hotbed of racism anymore than any other community. What I do see is that racism exists and the majority of the people in this city do not have to deal with it on an everday basis and therefore do not see it first hand.
I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people. And whatever is occurring is pervasive for the minority community–very consistent stories and very similar experiences. And it does not seem to matter if you are well-educated university employee, a college student, or someone from a more disadvantaged background. Talking to people who have been in this community for a long time like Desmond Jolly or Bill Calhoun is very enlightening, especially when you compare th stories to stories that some of the younger students tell you. Too many similarities to dismiss.
Again, that does not mean that I think the average person in Davis is a racist. I don’t.
Separate questions here are raised.
First, should what should the form of the HRC be? The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination. As you note, that works as long as the council agrees with the HRC is doing and doesn’t try to reign it in. You say it doesn’t make sense to have an independent HRC–but we often have official bodies that are created to be just that–independent of the power structure in order to monitor. The notion of the Ombudsman is premised on a similar notion of independence in order to perform oversight.
Now I do agree on one point–given what the city has done to the HRC, there is no sense in it continuing and we clearly need an independent body that could do what the original body was supposed to do. I’m not quite willing to give up on the notion just because this council have effectively neutered it.
The second point, I really need to respond in a clear manner. I don’t see Davis as a hotbed of racism anymore than any other community. What I do see is that racism exists and the majority of the people in this city do not have to deal with it on an everday basis and therefore do not see it first hand.
I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people. And whatever is occurring is pervasive for the minority community–very consistent stories and very similar experiences. And it does not seem to matter if you are well-educated university employee, a college student, or someone from a more disadvantaged background. Talking to people who have been in this community for a long time like Desmond Jolly or Bill Calhoun is very enlightening, especially when you compare th stories to stories that some of the younger students tell you. Too many similarities to dismiss.
Again, that does not mean that I think the average person in Davis is a racist. I don’t.
Separate questions here are raised.
First, should what should the form of the HRC be? The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination. As you note, that works as long as the council agrees with the HRC is doing and doesn’t try to reign it in. You say it doesn’t make sense to have an independent HRC–but we often have official bodies that are created to be just that–independent of the power structure in order to monitor. The notion of the Ombudsman is premised on a similar notion of independence in order to perform oversight.
Now I do agree on one point–given what the city has done to the HRC, there is no sense in it continuing and we clearly need an independent body that could do what the original body was supposed to do. I’m not quite willing to give up on the notion just because this council have effectively neutered it.
The second point, I really need to respond in a clear manner. I don’t see Davis as a hotbed of racism anymore than any other community. What I do see is that racism exists and the majority of the people in this city do not have to deal with it on an everday basis and therefore do not see it first hand.
I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people. And whatever is occurring is pervasive for the minority community–very consistent stories and very similar experiences. And it does not seem to matter if you are well-educated university employee, a college student, or someone from a more disadvantaged background. Talking to people who have been in this community for a long time like Desmond Jolly or Bill Calhoun is very enlightening, especially when you compare th stories to stories that some of the younger students tell you. Too many similarities to dismiss.
Again, that does not mean that I think the average person in Davis is a racist. I don’t.
the solution is to change the city electorate with a sustained political and educational campaign aimed at our neighbors. letters to the enterprise and the occasional soapbox session at the farmer’s market won’t hack it. build support and awareness at the person-to-person level, and the council might pay attention.
the solution is to change the city electorate with a sustained political and educational campaign aimed at our neighbors. letters to the enterprise and the occasional soapbox session at the farmer’s market won’t hack it. build support and awareness at the person-to-person level, and the council might pay attention.
the solution is to change the city electorate with a sustained political and educational campaign aimed at our neighbors. letters to the enterprise and the occasional soapbox session at the farmer’s market won’t hack it. build support and awareness at the person-to-person level, and the council might pay attention.
the solution is to change the city electorate with a sustained political and educational campaign aimed at our neighbors. letters to the enterprise and the occasional soapbox session at the farmer’s market won’t hack it. build support and awareness at the person-to-person level, and the council might pay attention.
as for davis, i would put us as a well-meaning community in stubborn denial of the experience of a segment of its population. this is where the ideology of ‘personal responsibility’ has been an unintentional abettor or hate crimes; people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.
people don’t get how their silence is taken by those who are harassed or disctriminated against. that needs to change.
as for davis, i would put us as a well-meaning community in stubborn denial of the experience of a segment of its population. this is where the ideology of ‘personal responsibility’ has been an unintentional abettor or hate crimes; people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.
people don’t get how their silence is taken by those who are harassed or disctriminated against. that needs to change.
as for davis, i would put us as a well-meaning community in stubborn denial of the experience of a segment of its population. this is where the ideology of ‘personal responsibility’ has been an unintentional abettor or hate crimes; people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.
people don’t get how their silence is taken by those who are harassed or disctriminated against. that needs to change.
as for davis, i would put us as a well-meaning community in stubborn denial of the experience of a segment of its population. this is where the ideology of ‘personal responsibility’ has been an unintentional abettor or hate crimes; people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.
people don’t get how their silence is taken by those who are harassed or disctriminated against. that needs to change.
“The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination.”
Doug,
You might be right about this. It seems your knowledge of the HRC trumps mine.
However, I thought that the original 1983 mandate was to try to bring the community together in the wake of the racially motivated killing of a Vietnam-born student at Davis High School by a white boy. It was not, I thought, a mandate to conduct any investigations at all. That mandate came much later.
The operating assumption in 1983, I believe, was that this homicide at the high school revealed that there was a terrible problem of racism at the high school and the larger community needed an institution, the HRC, to address this.
Because I graduated from Davis High in 1982 (and was then living on campus at UCSB), I was not in Davis when the stabbing death took place. However, I had lived in Davis all my life (from age 1) up to that point. And I am certain that the community that I knew very well had not greatly changed over night. That is, the community that I knew to be largely tolerant, friendly and the opposite of a hotbed of racial animus was still the same place.
My take then, and my take still, is that the killing of the Vietnamese boy by the racist boy was not really a reflection of Davis. It didn’t reveal that there was a terrible underlying problem of racism here. It was just a horrible and exceptional case and always should have been seen as such.
Most telling (to me) is the fact that I had never heard of the victim or the murderer. I was the kind (in high school) who everyone knew and knew everyone. But there was a really good reason that I had never heard of those kids: they were not from Davis.
Neither one grew up in Davis. Neither one was living in Davis the year before, when I graduated. Both had just recently settled here. The racist kid didn’t learn his racist ways in Davis. He didn’t change to accomodate himself to a racist climate in this burg. Rather, he was a troubled kid from a very troubled family, who had moved from town to town to town. He could have killed someone in any town at any time along the way. It just happened that he was here when he snapped and let loose the anger that had been infused in him over a lifetime of problems.
“I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people.”
That may be so. I’m not sure. I have a lot of non-white friends, but their experiences are not necessarily representative of the larger community. I think most of them are very happy to be living here.
Nonetheless, I think things must be looked at on a relative basis: that is, how does the treatment or mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities compare in Davis with other communities?
I would suspect that Davis is far better integrated than most places, and its racial climate is much more tolerant.
(I know as a Jew, Davis is largely not anti-Semitic. I cannot say that about all other places. However, that does not mean that there are not some acts of anti-Semitism here. You may recall that the attacks on the churches west of Davis included violently anti-Semitic graffiti. As well, our local synagogue is forced to pay for a security guard, anytime there is a large gathering at the temple, due to threats of violence. But most people in Davis harbor no religious prejudice.)
Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.
I also think that if the new ombudsmen finds that there are police officers in Davis who exhibit a pattern of abuse, then we should get rid of those cops. Because the vast majority of people in Davis are good people, are tolerant of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations, the people of Davis will support firing a cop who seriously abuses his authority against a minority community.
Up to this point, I don’t know of any cop who can be fairly accused of that: most certainly, the cop (who happens to be Asian) who arrested the Muslim girl for ‘hit and run’ cannot be fairly labled a rogue or racist police officer. He may have made some mistakes in that case. But nothing he did suggests to me that his intent was to single out someone of the Islamic faith for abuse.
“The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination.”
Doug,
You might be right about this. It seems your knowledge of the HRC trumps mine.
However, I thought that the original 1983 mandate was to try to bring the community together in the wake of the racially motivated killing of a Vietnam-born student at Davis High School by a white boy. It was not, I thought, a mandate to conduct any investigations at all. That mandate came much later.
The operating assumption in 1983, I believe, was that this homicide at the high school revealed that there was a terrible problem of racism at the high school and the larger community needed an institution, the HRC, to address this.
Because I graduated from Davis High in 1982 (and was then living on campus at UCSB), I was not in Davis when the stabbing death took place. However, I had lived in Davis all my life (from age 1) up to that point. And I am certain that the community that I knew very well had not greatly changed over night. That is, the community that I knew to be largely tolerant, friendly and the opposite of a hotbed of racial animus was still the same place.
My take then, and my take still, is that the killing of the Vietnamese boy by the racist boy was not really a reflection of Davis. It didn’t reveal that there was a terrible underlying problem of racism here. It was just a horrible and exceptional case and always should have been seen as such.
Most telling (to me) is the fact that I had never heard of the victim or the murderer. I was the kind (in high school) who everyone knew and knew everyone. But there was a really good reason that I had never heard of those kids: they were not from Davis.
Neither one grew up in Davis. Neither one was living in Davis the year before, when I graduated. Both had just recently settled here. The racist kid didn’t learn his racist ways in Davis. He didn’t change to accomodate himself to a racist climate in this burg. Rather, he was a troubled kid from a very troubled family, who had moved from town to town to town. He could have killed someone in any town at any time along the way. It just happened that he was here when he snapped and let loose the anger that had been infused in him over a lifetime of problems.
“I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people.”
That may be so. I’m not sure. I have a lot of non-white friends, but their experiences are not necessarily representative of the larger community. I think most of them are very happy to be living here.
Nonetheless, I think things must be looked at on a relative basis: that is, how does the treatment or mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities compare in Davis with other communities?
I would suspect that Davis is far better integrated than most places, and its racial climate is much more tolerant.
(I know as a Jew, Davis is largely not anti-Semitic. I cannot say that about all other places. However, that does not mean that there are not some acts of anti-Semitism here. You may recall that the attacks on the churches west of Davis included violently anti-Semitic graffiti. As well, our local synagogue is forced to pay for a security guard, anytime there is a large gathering at the temple, due to threats of violence. But most people in Davis harbor no religious prejudice.)
Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.
I also think that if the new ombudsmen finds that there are police officers in Davis who exhibit a pattern of abuse, then we should get rid of those cops. Because the vast majority of people in Davis are good people, are tolerant of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations, the people of Davis will support firing a cop who seriously abuses his authority against a minority community.
Up to this point, I don’t know of any cop who can be fairly accused of that: most certainly, the cop (who happens to be Asian) who arrested the Muslim girl for ‘hit and run’ cannot be fairly labled a rogue or racist police officer. He may have made some mistakes in that case. But nothing he did suggests to me that his intent was to single out someone of the Islamic faith for abuse.
“The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination.”
Doug,
You might be right about this. It seems your knowledge of the HRC trumps mine.
However, I thought that the original 1983 mandate was to try to bring the community together in the wake of the racially motivated killing of a Vietnam-born student at Davis High School by a white boy. It was not, I thought, a mandate to conduct any investigations at all. That mandate came much later.
The operating assumption in 1983, I believe, was that this homicide at the high school revealed that there was a terrible problem of racism at the high school and the larger community needed an institution, the HRC, to address this.
Because I graduated from Davis High in 1982 (and was then living on campus at UCSB), I was not in Davis when the stabbing death took place. However, I had lived in Davis all my life (from age 1) up to that point. And I am certain that the community that I knew very well had not greatly changed over night. That is, the community that I knew to be largely tolerant, friendly and the opposite of a hotbed of racial animus was still the same place.
My take then, and my take still, is that the killing of the Vietnamese boy by the racist boy was not really a reflection of Davis. It didn’t reveal that there was a terrible underlying problem of racism here. It was just a horrible and exceptional case and always should have been seen as such.
Most telling (to me) is the fact that I had never heard of the victim or the murderer. I was the kind (in high school) who everyone knew and knew everyone. But there was a really good reason that I had never heard of those kids: they were not from Davis.
Neither one grew up in Davis. Neither one was living in Davis the year before, when I graduated. Both had just recently settled here. The racist kid didn’t learn his racist ways in Davis. He didn’t change to accomodate himself to a racist climate in this burg. Rather, he was a troubled kid from a very troubled family, who had moved from town to town to town. He could have killed someone in any town at any time along the way. It just happened that he was here when he snapped and let loose the anger that had been infused in him over a lifetime of problems.
“I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people.”
That may be so. I’m not sure. I have a lot of non-white friends, but their experiences are not necessarily representative of the larger community. I think most of them are very happy to be living here.
Nonetheless, I think things must be looked at on a relative basis: that is, how does the treatment or mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities compare in Davis with other communities?
I would suspect that Davis is far better integrated than most places, and its racial climate is much more tolerant.
(I know as a Jew, Davis is largely not anti-Semitic. I cannot say that about all other places. However, that does not mean that there are not some acts of anti-Semitism here. You may recall that the attacks on the churches west of Davis included violently anti-Semitic graffiti. As well, our local synagogue is forced to pay for a security guard, anytime there is a large gathering at the temple, due to threats of violence. But most people in Davis harbor no religious prejudice.)
Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.
I also think that if the new ombudsmen finds that there are police officers in Davis who exhibit a pattern of abuse, then we should get rid of those cops. Because the vast majority of people in Davis are good people, are tolerant of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations, the people of Davis will support firing a cop who seriously abuses his authority against a minority community.
Up to this point, I don’t know of any cop who can be fairly accused of that: most certainly, the cop (who happens to be Asian) who arrested the Muslim girl for ‘hit and run’ cannot be fairly labled a rogue or racist police officer. He may have made some mistakes in that case. But nothing he did suggests to me that his intent was to single out someone of the Islamic faith for abuse.
“The original mandate was to create a body that could investigate cases of discrimination.”
Doug,
You might be right about this. It seems your knowledge of the HRC trumps mine.
However, I thought that the original 1983 mandate was to try to bring the community together in the wake of the racially motivated killing of a Vietnam-born student at Davis High School by a white boy. It was not, I thought, a mandate to conduct any investigations at all. That mandate came much later.
The operating assumption in 1983, I believe, was that this homicide at the high school revealed that there was a terrible problem of racism at the high school and the larger community needed an institution, the HRC, to address this.
Because I graduated from Davis High in 1982 (and was then living on campus at UCSB), I was not in Davis when the stabbing death took place. However, I had lived in Davis all my life (from age 1) up to that point. And I am certain that the community that I knew very well had not greatly changed over night. That is, the community that I knew to be largely tolerant, friendly and the opposite of a hotbed of racial animus was still the same place.
My take then, and my take still, is that the killing of the Vietnamese boy by the racist boy was not really a reflection of Davis. It didn’t reveal that there was a terrible underlying problem of racism here. It was just a horrible and exceptional case and always should have been seen as such.
Most telling (to me) is the fact that I had never heard of the victim or the murderer. I was the kind (in high school) who everyone knew and knew everyone. But there was a really good reason that I had never heard of those kids: they were not from Davis.
Neither one grew up in Davis. Neither one was living in Davis the year before, when I graduated. Both had just recently settled here. The racist kid didn’t learn his racist ways in Davis. He didn’t change to accomodate himself to a racist climate in this burg. Rather, he was a troubled kid from a very troubled family, who had moved from town to town to town. He could have killed someone in any town at any time along the way. It just happened that he was here when he snapped and let loose the anger that had been infused in him over a lifetime of problems.
“I do know that if you talk to people of color you get a very different picture of this city than if you talk to white people.”
That may be so. I’m not sure. I have a lot of non-white friends, but their experiences are not necessarily representative of the larger community. I think most of them are very happy to be living here.
Nonetheless, I think things must be looked at on a relative basis: that is, how does the treatment or mistreatment of racial and ethnic minorities compare in Davis with other communities?
I would suspect that Davis is far better integrated than most places, and its racial climate is much more tolerant.
(I know as a Jew, Davis is largely not anti-Semitic. I cannot say that about all other places. However, that does not mean that there are not some acts of anti-Semitism here. You may recall that the attacks on the churches west of Davis included violently anti-Semitic graffiti. As well, our local synagogue is forced to pay for a security guard, anytime there is a large gathering at the temple, due to threats of violence. But most people in Davis harbor no religious prejudice.)
Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.
I also think that if the new ombudsmen finds that there are police officers in Davis who exhibit a pattern of abuse, then we should get rid of those cops. Because the vast majority of people in Davis are good people, are tolerant of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual orientations, the people of Davis will support firing a cop who seriously abuses his authority against a minority community.
Up to this point, I don’t know of any cop who can be fairly accused of that: most certainly, the cop (who happens to be Asian) who arrested the Muslim girl for ‘hit and run’ cannot be fairly labled a rogue or racist police officer. He may have made some mistakes in that case. But nothing he did suggests to me that his intent was to single out someone of the Islamic faith for abuse.
Rich:
I think Wu Ming’s comment, (I’m not sure if you saw it or passed by incidentally due to timing in the posting sequence) is a good one and I think says it better than I have thus far. I think most people are well-intentioned in Davis.
A few thoughts on your posts. I will have to look at the original charter of the HRC again, there is not a huge amount of time elapsed between its inception in 1983 and the anti-discrimination ordinance which was crafted in part by the HRC in 1986. So it’s not like 10 years later, they added to the responsibilities. What I do not know for sure is whether the anti-discrimination ordinance added duties or codified existing practices.
Part of what is happening is what you’ve described–Davis is changing. It’s becoming more diverse and the community is not used to having to deal with these sorts of issues.
Again I think the comments of Wu Ming are instructive to this conversation:
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond? And what concerned me is that the official response I heard from members of the district was a cya rather than a let’s fix the problem. At one point the climate coordinator said, well things here are better than elsewhere. His point of comparison was West Sac, which is not a good point of comparison. And that’s also the last thing that parent wants to hear. Better handling by the authorities could diffuse a lot of these problems.
I don’t think that Davis is a homophobic town, but there have been a lot of anti-gay incidents that I can think of in the past three years. Part of the concern is how we respond to these problems.
“Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.”
Ideally I agree. My concern in this respect is that I do not think the system has been responsive enough to those concerns to investigate and prosecute.
Furthermore, entry to the courts civally is prohibitive for a lot of people. I know at least 10 people who I think have serious complaints against the police, who cannot file suit because they lack the funds to pay for attorneys and also because there is really a lack of good civil rights attorneys. Several people had valid, again imo, lawsuits and had poor legal representation and the cases got screwed up.
I will also mention, since you brought up the Buzayan case, I think that was a case of poor police work rather than a case of racial prejudice. I think he jumped on a lot of assumptions without proper investigation and he got sloppy in his handling of the matter. I’ve talked to multiple law enforcement officials who had very serious concerns about that case from top to bottom. None of those concerns had to do with racism. I think the family made a mistake bringing up race there when there were many more serious and obvious problems. So there’s a case involving a minority that wasn’t really about it being a minority.
But, then as I look at my list of cases, I find but one involving a white man–the Johansson case. That in itself raises some flags.
Rich:
I think Wu Ming’s comment, (I’m not sure if you saw it or passed by incidentally due to timing in the posting sequence) is a good one and I think says it better than I have thus far. I think most people are well-intentioned in Davis.
A few thoughts on your posts. I will have to look at the original charter of the HRC again, there is not a huge amount of time elapsed between its inception in 1983 and the anti-discrimination ordinance which was crafted in part by the HRC in 1986. So it’s not like 10 years later, they added to the responsibilities. What I do not know for sure is whether the anti-discrimination ordinance added duties or codified existing practices.
Part of what is happening is what you’ve described–Davis is changing. It’s becoming more diverse and the community is not used to having to deal with these sorts of issues.
Again I think the comments of Wu Ming are instructive to this conversation:
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond? And what concerned me is that the official response I heard from members of the district was a cya rather than a let’s fix the problem. At one point the climate coordinator said, well things here are better than elsewhere. His point of comparison was West Sac, which is not a good point of comparison. And that’s also the last thing that parent wants to hear. Better handling by the authorities could diffuse a lot of these problems.
I don’t think that Davis is a homophobic town, but there have been a lot of anti-gay incidents that I can think of in the past three years. Part of the concern is how we respond to these problems.
“Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.”
Ideally I agree. My concern in this respect is that I do not think the system has been responsive enough to those concerns to investigate and prosecute.
Furthermore, entry to the courts civally is prohibitive for a lot of people. I know at least 10 people who I think have serious complaints against the police, who cannot file suit because they lack the funds to pay for attorneys and also because there is really a lack of good civil rights attorneys. Several people had valid, again imo, lawsuits and had poor legal representation and the cases got screwed up.
I will also mention, since you brought up the Buzayan case, I think that was a case of poor police work rather than a case of racial prejudice. I think he jumped on a lot of assumptions without proper investigation and he got sloppy in his handling of the matter. I’ve talked to multiple law enforcement officials who had very serious concerns about that case from top to bottom. None of those concerns had to do with racism. I think the family made a mistake bringing up race there when there were many more serious and obvious problems. So there’s a case involving a minority that wasn’t really about it being a minority.
But, then as I look at my list of cases, I find but one involving a white man–the Johansson case. That in itself raises some flags.
Rich:
I think Wu Ming’s comment, (I’m not sure if you saw it or passed by incidentally due to timing in the posting sequence) is a good one and I think says it better than I have thus far. I think most people are well-intentioned in Davis.
A few thoughts on your posts. I will have to look at the original charter of the HRC again, there is not a huge amount of time elapsed between its inception in 1983 and the anti-discrimination ordinance which was crafted in part by the HRC in 1986. So it’s not like 10 years later, they added to the responsibilities. What I do not know for sure is whether the anti-discrimination ordinance added duties or codified existing practices.
Part of what is happening is what you’ve described–Davis is changing. It’s becoming more diverse and the community is not used to having to deal with these sorts of issues.
Again I think the comments of Wu Ming are instructive to this conversation:
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond? And what concerned me is that the official response I heard from members of the district was a cya rather than a let’s fix the problem. At one point the climate coordinator said, well things here are better than elsewhere. His point of comparison was West Sac, which is not a good point of comparison. And that’s also the last thing that parent wants to hear. Better handling by the authorities could diffuse a lot of these problems.
I don’t think that Davis is a homophobic town, but there have been a lot of anti-gay incidents that I can think of in the past three years. Part of the concern is how we respond to these problems.
“Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.”
Ideally I agree. My concern in this respect is that I do not think the system has been responsive enough to those concerns to investigate and prosecute.
Furthermore, entry to the courts civally is prohibitive for a lot of people. I know at least 10 people who I think have serious complaints against the police, who cannot file suit because they lack the funds to pay for attorneys and also because there is really a lack of good civil rights attorneys. Several people had valid, again imo, lawsuits and had poor legal representation and the cases got screwed up.
I will also mention, since you brought up the Buzayan case, I think that was a case of poor police work rather than a case of racial prejudice. I think he jumped on a lot of assumptions without proper investigation and he got sloppy in his handling of the matter. I’ve talked to multiple law enforcement officials who had very serious concerns about that case from top to bottom. None of those concerns had to do with racism. I think the family made a mistake bringing up race there when there were many more serious and obvious problems. So there’s a case involving a minority that wasn’t really about it being a minority.
But, then as I look at my list of cases, I find but one involving a white man–the Johansson case. That in itself raises some flags.
Rich:
I think Wu Ming’s comment, (I’m not sure if you saw it or passed by incidentally due to timing in the posting sequence) is a good one and I think says it better than I have thus far. I think most people are well-intentioned in Davis.
A few thoughts on your posts. I will have to look at the original charter of the HRC again, there is not a huge amount of time elapsed between its inception in 1983 and the anti-discrimination ordinance which was crafted in part by the HRC in 1986. So it’s not like 10 years later, they added to the responsibilities. What I do not know for sure is whether the anti-discrimination ordinance added duties or codified existing practices.
Part of what is happening is what you’ve described–Davis is changing. It’s becoming more diverse and the community is not used to having to deal with these sorts of issues.
Again I think the comments of Wu Ming are instructive to this conversation:
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond? And what concerned me is that the official response I heard from members of the district was a cya rather than a let’s fix the problem. At one point the climate coordinator said, well things here are better than elsewhere. His point of comparison was West Sac, which is not a good point of comparison. And that’s also the last thing that parent wants to hear. Better handling by the authorities could diffuse a lot of these problems.
I don’t think that Davis is a homophobic town, but there have been a lot of anti-gay incidents that I can think of in the past three years. Part of the concern is how we respond to these problems.
“Insofar as any mistreatment of minorities is criminal in nature — such as threats or physical violence or abuse of civil rights — I think the courts are the best forum for investigating such questions.”
Ideally I agree. My concern in this respect is that I do not think the system has been responsive enough to those concerns to investigate and prosecute.
Furthermore, entry to the courts civally is prohibitive for a lot of people. I know at least 10 people who I think have serious complaints against the police, who cannot file suit because they lack the funds to pay for attorneys and also because there is really a lack of good civil rights attorneys. Several people had valid, again imo, lawsuits and had poor legal representation and the cases got screwed up.
I will also mention, since you brought up the Buzayan case, I think that was a case of poor police work rather than a case of racial prejudice. I think he jumped on a lot of assumptions without proper investigation and he got sloppy in his handling of the matter. I’ve talked to multiple law enforcement officials who had very serious concerns about that case from top to bottom. None of those concerns had to do with racism. I think the family made a mistake bringing up race there when there were many more serious and obvious problems. So there’s a case involving a minority that wasn’t really about it being a minority.
But, then as I look at my list of cases, I find but one involving a white man–the Johansson case. That in itself raises some flags.
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
I believe the larger community in Davis has always done this. At least as long as I have lived in Davis.
“That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond?”
Doug,
I completely agree. I think, once the allegation of harrassment is shown to be true, we need to condemn the discriminatory behavior and strongly side with the victim.
If you recall the case of the two brothers from Redding who murdered a gay couple and torched 3 Sacto synagogues, that is just what happened. The larger Sac metro community, most importantly the non-Jewish religious community, came together and condemned the acts of those brothers.
The same thing happened in Davis when two juvenile delinquents vandalized the churches west of town and spray-painted racist and anti-Semitic graffiti on the buildings. It was after that event that a horde of Davis High kids marched downtown to protest racism.
However, some folks in Davis automatically assume that an allegation of harrassment is true before it has been established, and they go on to condemn the wider Davis community for not acting, when important questions have not yet been resolved.
Beyond that, at least in the Buzayan case (and maybe in others), charges of racial or ethnic harrassment are sometimes made unjustly. As you suggest, there may have been bad police work in that case.
What I think is important is that the community does not hear about a charge of racism or harrassment and react too quickly. If it is proved to be true, or if the charge is even just likely true, then, as Wu Ming says, we need to speak out as a community against it. But it would be terribly counter-productive to launch a protest against an allegedly racist culprit (as I believe was done against the cop in the Buzayan case) when the person in question was not biased at all.
You may recall the case of the woman who said she was raped on the Covell Blvd overpass by skateboarders. Before her allegations were shown to be completely false, there was widespread condemnation against skateboarders as a group, some saying these kids were a menace to society, and other women saying that they feared being around them.
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
I believe the larger community in Davis has always done this. At least as long as I have lived in Davis.
“That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond?”
Doug,
I completely agree. I think, once the allegation of harrassment is shown to be true, we need to condemn the discriminatory behavior and strongly side with the victim.
If you recall the case of the two brothers from Redding who murdered a gay couple and torched 3 Sacto synagogues, that is just what happened. The larger Sac metro community, most importantly the non-Jewish religious community, came together and condemned the acts of those brothers.
The same thing happened in Davis when two juvenile delinquents vandalized the churches west of town and spray-painted racist and anti-Semitic graffiti on the buildings. It was after that event that a horde of Davis High kids marched downtown to protest racism.
However, some folks in Davis automatically assume that an allegation of harrassment is true before it has been established, and they go on to condemn the wider Davis community for not acting, when important questions have not yet been resolved.
Beyond that, at least in the Buzayan case (and maybe in others), charges of racial or ethnic harrassment are sometimes made unjustly. As you suggest, there may have been bad police work in that case.
What I think is important is that the community does not hear about a charge of racism or harrassment and react too quickly. If it is proved to be true, or if the charge is even just likely true, then, as Wu Ming says, we need to speak out as a community against it. But it would be terribly counter-productive to launch a protest against an allegedly racist culprit (as I believe was done against the cop in the Buzayan case) when the person in question was not biased at all.
You may recall the case of the woman who said she was raped on the Covell Blvd overpass by skateboarders. Before her allegations were shown to be completely false, there was widespread condemnation against skateboarders as a group, some saying these kids were a menace to society, and other women saying that they feared being around them.
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
I believe the larger community in Davis has always done this. At least as long as I have lived in Davis.
“That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond?”
Doug,
I completely agree. I think, once the allegation of harrassment is shown to be true, we need to condemn the discriminatory behavior and strongly side with the victim.
If you recall the case of the two brothers from Redding who murdered a gay couple and torched 3 Sacto synagogues, that is just what happened. The larger Sac metro community, most importantly the non-Jewish religious community, came together and condemned the acts of those brothers.
The same thing happened in Davis when two juvenile delinquents vandalized the churches west of town and spray-painted racist and anti-Semitic graffiti on the buildings. It was after that event that a horde of Davis High kids marched downtown to protest racism.
However, some folks in Davis automatically assume that an allegation of harrassment is true before it has been established, and they go on to condemn the wider Davis community for not acting, when important questions have not yet been resolved.
Beyond that, at least in the Buzayan case (and maybe in others), charges of racial or ethnic harrassment are sometimes made unjustly. As you suggest, there may have been bad police work in that case.
What I think is important is that the community does not hear about a charge of racism or harrassment and react too quickly. If it is proved to be true, or if the charge is even just likely true, then, as Wu Ming says, we need to speak out as a community against it. But it would be terribly counter-productive to launch a protest against an allegedly racist culprit (as I believe was done against the cop in the Buzayan case) when the person in question was not biased at all.
You may recall the case of the woman who said she was raped on the Covell Blvd overpass by skateboarders. Before her allegations were shown to be completely false, there was widespread condemnation against skateboarders as a group, some saying these kids were a menace to society, and other women saying that they feared being around them.
“people assume that if some bigot does something, that it is only an issue for the bigot, without accepting responsibility as a community to openly side with the victim and make it publicly clear that the community does not support such actions.”
I believe the larger community in Davis has always done this. At least as long as I have lived in Davis.
“That’s really my concern. A bunch of kids harrass a kid because his parents are gay, how do we respond?”
Doug,
I completely agree. I think, once the allegation of harrassment is shown to be true, we need to condemn the discriminatory behavior and strongly side with the victim.
If you recall the case of the two brothers from Redding who murdered a gay couple and torched 3 Sacto synagogues, that is just what happened. The larger Sac metro community, most importantly the non-Jewish religious community, came together and condemned the acts of those brothers.
The same thing happened in Davis when two juvenile delinquents vandalized the churches west of town and spray-painted racist and anti-Semitic graffiti on the buildings. It was after that event that a horde of Davis High kids marched downtown to protest racism.
However, some folks in Davis automatically assume that an allegation of harrassment is true before it has been established, and they go on to condemn the wider Davis community for not acting, when important questions have not yet been resolved.
Beyond that, at least in the Buzayan case (and maybe in others), charges of racial or ethnic harrassment are sometimes made unjustly. As you suggest, there may have been bad police work in that case.
What I think is important is that the community does not hear about a charge of racism or harrassment and react too quickly. If it is proved to be true, or if the charge is even just likely true, then, as Wu Ming says, we need to speak out as a community against it. But it would be terribly counter-productive to launch a protest against an allegedly racist culprit (as I believe was done against the cop in the Buzayan case) when the person in question was not biased at all.
You may recall the case of the woman who said she was raped on the Covell Blvd overpass by skateboarders. Before her allegations were shown to be completely false, there was widespread condemnation against skateboarders as a group, some saying these kids were a menace to society, and other women saying that they feared being around them.