Brian EllerWho is Cynthia McKinney? A) an embarrassment to the United States Congress B) a crazy women with ‘unique’ hairstyles C) a congresswomen who should be facing grand jury indictment for striking a police officer D) all of the above. Yes, the answer is D.
Cynthia McKinney is a black congresswoman who struck a police officer after being grabbed by the officer. The officer had warned her multiple times to stop after she had bypassed metal detectors without showing any identification outside of a House office building. Two days after the incident, Rep. McKinney made comments to the press claiming the officer inappropriately touched her and that she was a victim of racial profiling. For over a week, Rep. McKinney and her lawyers maintained this position, until a grand jury indictment became a real possibility. She then made an about-face, expressed “sincere regret” and offered an apology to the House (but not offering an apology to Capitol police or admitting any culpability).
This story demonstrates two things: first, people (Congress people included) act in outrageous and silly ways; and second, some people attempt to use race to hide behind silly and outrageous actions. Rep. McKinney played the race card and used a claim of racial profiling, the use of race as a factor in suspect profiling, to distract the media from her criminal action.
Many Democrats and the NAACP, who believe in the horrors and prevalence of racial profiling, are hypocrites. For instance, immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a Gallup poll as reported by the Boston Globe, showed that 71 percent of blacks (as opposed to 57 percent of whites) supported the racial profiling or special treatment for Arab-Americans at airport security checkpoints. Wait, the majority of blacks supported racial profiling for a group (Arabs) that is arguably more likely to commit an act of terrorism, but the NAACP (a group that claims to represent Black interests) is unwilling to support similar tactics involving everyday crimes. To me, when a police report about a black car thief in a green sport utility vehicle goes out, it makes sense to stop and investigate black drivers in green SUVs.
But not to the NAACP.
Likewise, if an Asian did the same thing, it would make sense to stop Asians.
Another example of this hypocrisy is the President’s port deal and the commotion it caused with Democrats. When the president offered to hand over security of our ports from a British company to a company based out of the United Arab Emirates, I would have thought that Democrats would have applauded our president on his acceptance of diversity (a term that Democrats love). Imagine the surprise when Democrats were outraged that the president would consider such a thing. I guess the Democrats who trust the British over those Arabs with port security must be racists (since in their eyes, the support of racial profiling certainly is rascist).
A lot of Republicans believe, on the other hand, that race is a factor (but not the only factor) to be used in investigations.
These Republicans don’t believe in singling out a particular race arbitrary, but believe in treating all races equally in their profiling tactics. Likewise, Republicans apply the idea of equality to ideas like affirmative action and hate crime legislation, which emphasize inequality and need to go.
Brian Eller is a materials engineering sophomore and a Mustang Daily columnist.