Shootings and explosions in Paris

[Crazy_Ivan80]

11 dead, 25 wounded so far, rumours of more bombs found.

[Berkut]

I suspect that if the best you can do in outrage is something as mealy mouthed as "that kind of sounds racist", then the problem is with you more than someone else.

Racism is a pretty terrible thing, and it exists and should be aggressively fought, or it does not exist and cannot be described as "kind of sounds racist".

If you are trying that hard to be outraged, I suspect the issue is internal.

Someone fleeing the civil war in the Ukraine should be treated just the same, because otherwise it is "kind of maybe sorta racist oh dear golly". So you are going to speak to them both in the same language? Going to assume they both have the same dietary needs, and would like to live in the same housing arrangement? Assume they both present the exact same security risks?

I say "sounds kind of racist" it's because I want to give someone an "out".

If you want to treat my hypothetical differently because one requires service in Ukrainian/Russian, while the other requires services in Arabic?  Okay yes you got me - they should eb treated differently in that respect.  The Ukrainian refugee is going to enjoy eating pyrogies more than the Syrian refugee, so food aid should be different as well.

I dunno, assuming that someone speaks some particular language or likes some particular food because of their origins? Sounds kind of racist to me.

"Are they both going to present the exact same security risks"?  I would say you damn well better do what you can to screen both groups for security risks.

That is just it though - you have limited resources, so you have to choose where and how to spend them. Your argument demands that in order to avoid "sounding kind of racist" we spend them non-optimally, and assume that two groups are the same when it comes to security risk, when in fact we know damn well they are not.

Your demand is that in order to not "sound kind of racist" we treat groups that present very different risks as if they present the exact same risk, which means that one group is going to get more attention than it deserves and the other will get less, all so we can make sure we are politically correct and don't "seem kind of racist".

The engineer immigrating from China presents a very different security risk than the migrant farm worker immigrating from Colombia and the Muslim refugee from Syria. They all need to be screened, but some in a cursory manner, and some not so cursory, and the kind of screening is different as well. Those differences might "seem kind of racist", but the ridiculous demand that we treat them all the same so we don't "seem kind of racist" is why radical nutjobs like Trump get traction with people when he says they are all rapists and Muslim terrorists. Lack of reasonable nuance on one end leads to lack of reasonable nuance on the other.

[Berkut]

two explosions at the passenger side of Brussels Airport. I work at the freight side.
This is unfolding yet. Apparently explosion at American Airlines desk.
I don't suspect this is a gas leak

I sure hope security forces don't focus their attention on Muslims, because that might seem kind of racist.

[Martinus]

I suspect that if the best you can do in outrage is something as mealy mouthed as "that kind of sounds racist", then the problem is with you more than someone else.

Racism is a pretty terrible thing, and it exists and should be aggressively fought, or it does not exist and cannot be described as "kind of sounds racist".

If you are trying that hard to be outraged, I suspect the issue is internal.

Someone fleeing the civil war in the Ukraine should be treated just the same, because otherwise it is "kind of maybe sorta racist oh dear golly". So you are going to speak to them both in the same language? Going to assume they both have the same dietary needs, and would like to live in the same housing arrangement? Assume they both present the exact same security risks?

I say "sounds kind of racist" it's because I want to give someone an "out".

If you want to treat my hypothetical differently because one requires service in Ukrainian/Russian, while the other requires services in Arabic?  Okay yes you got me - they should eb treated differently in that respect.  The Ukrainian refugee is going to enjoy eating pyrogies more than the Syrian refugee, so food aid should be different as well.

I dunno, assuming that someone speaks some particular language or likes some particular food because of their origins? Sounds kind of racist to me.

"Are they both going to present the exact same security risks"?  I would say you damn well better do what you can to screen both groups for security risks.

That is just it though - you have limited resources, so you have to choose where and how to spend them. Your argument demands that in order to avoid "sounding kind of racist" we spend them non-optimally, and assume that two groups are the same when it comes to security risk, when in fact we know damn well they are not.

Your demand is that in order to not "sound kind of racist" we treat groups that present very different risks as if they present the exact same risk, which means that one group is going to get more attention than it deserves and the other will get less, all so we can make sure we are politically correct and don't "seem kind of racist".

The engineer immigrating from China presents a very different security risk than the migrant farm worker immigrating from Colombia and the Muslim refugee from Syria. They all need to be screened, but some in a cursory manner, and some not so cursory, and the kind of screening is different as well. Those differences might "seem kind of racist", but the ridiculous demand that we treat them all the same so we don't "seem kind of racist" is why radical nutjobs like Trump get traction with people when he says they are all rapists and Muslim terrorists. Lack of reasonable nuance on one end leads to lack of reasonable nuance on the other.

Yup, it's like banning sexually active gay men/MSM from donating blood. It may be reasonable to lift the ban now if statistics confirm the risk has shifted but until recently sorry, the risk was there and it just doesn't make sense to dedicate additional resources for a little objective gain just to make one group feel good about itself.

[frunk]

Filters like this are can be quick to be added, but frequently can take a long time to be reversed.  They usually get added during a panic, get indiscriminately applied and last well past the point where they are doing any good.  It would be best if such filters were well considered before use and regularly reviewed after.

Second, they can be useful when you are looking for terrorists, they are not useful when you are looking for immigrants.  Looking for terrorists is a needle in a haystack type of problem, the target is a tiny percentage of the population.  Anything that can reduce the search without getting too many false negatives is of utility.  For immigrants knowing that .01% of a population could be terrorists versus .0001% doesn't tell you much.  The vast majority of either group would be perfectly acceptable (on the "not a terrorist" criteria), and to exclude them based on a tiny sub-group isn't the best way to go about it.

[Berkut]

Filters like this are can be quick to be added, but frequently can take a long time to be reversed.  They usually get added during a panic, get indiscriminately applied and last well past the point where they are doing any good.  It would be best if such filters were well considered before use and regularly reviewed after.

Second, they can be useful when you are looking for terrorists, they are not useful when you are looking for immigrants.  Looking for terrorists is a needle in a haystack type of problem, the target is a tiny percentage of the population.  Anything that can reduce the search without getting too many false negatives is of utility.  For immigrants knowing that .01% of a population could be terrorists versus .0001% doesn't tell you much.  The vast majority of either group would be perfectly acceptable (on the "not a terrorist" criteria), and to exclude them based on a tiny sub-group isn't the best way to go about it.

It is certainly the case that any policy, even if based on reality, can then be exploited and abused.

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

[Barrister]

two explosions at the passenger side of Brussels Airport. I work at the freight side.
This is unfolding yet. Apparently explosion at American Airlines desk.
I don't suspect this is a gas leak

I sure hope security forces don't focus their attention on Muslims, because that might seem kind of racist.

As with any attack it is perfectly fine to put "Islamic terrorists" at the top of your suspect list - but you better be open to other possibilities and not just automatically assume that is your suspect.

[Berkut]

two explosions at the passenger side of Brussels Airport. I work at the freight side.
This is unfolding yet. Apparently explosion at American Airlines desk.
I don't suspect this is a gas leak

I sure hope security forces don't focus their attention on Muslims, because that might seem kind of racist.

As with any attack it is perfectly fine to put "Islamic terrorists" at the top of your suspect list - but you better be open to other possibilities and not just automatically assume that is your suspect.

That seems kind of racist.

[frunk]

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

The concern isn't whether we can find immigrants, but what criteria should be used.  Threat of terrorism from a religious group isn't a particularly useful one, apart from individuals who can be tied to such a threat.

[Berkut]

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

The concern isn't whether we can find immigrants, but what criteria should be used.  Threat of terrorism from a religious group isn't a particularly useful one, apart from individuals who can be tied to such a threat.

I, personally, do not believe that the threat of terrorism should significantly impact decisions about how many Syrian refugees countries should accept.

However, that threat should very much influence the process by which they are accepted, and how they are monitored. And if they don't like that, tough shit.

[Solmyr]

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

The concern isn't whether we can find immigrants, but what criteria should be used.  Threat of terrorism from a religious group isn't a particularly useful one, apart from individuals who can be tied to such a threat.

I, personally, do not believe that the threat of terrorism should significantly impact decisions about how many Syrian refugees countries should accept.

However, that threat should very much influence the process by which they are accepted, and how they are monitored. And if they don't like that, tough shit.

Do you think it is going to help integration if you know you are assumed guilty and constantly monitored by the security services purely because of the way you look?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

The concern isn't whether we can find immigrants, but what criteria should be used.  Threat of terrorism from a religious group isn't a particularly useful one, apart from individuals who can be tied to such a threat.

I, personally, do not believe that the threat of terrorism should significantly impact decisions about how many Syrian refugees countries should accept.

However, that threat should very much influence the process by which they are accepted, and how they are monitored. And if they don't like that, tough shit.

Do you think it is going to help integration if you know you are assumed guilty and constantly monitored by the security services purely because of the way you look?

if they're refugees they need to go back to their country of origin after the conflict.

[derspiess]

I love when the cover gets blown on the "refugee" racket.

[Berkut]

Lucky for us, we are not really having any problem finding immigrants, so concerns about how a policy might make that difficult is not really much of an issue...

The concern isn't whether we can find immigrants, but what criteria should be used.  Threat of terrorism from a religious group isn't a particularly useful one, apart from individuals who can be tied to such a threat.

I, personally, do not believe that the threat of terrorism should significantly impact decisions about how many Syrian refugees countries should accept.

However, that threat should very much influence the process by which they are accepted, and how they are monitored. And if they don't like that, tough shit.

Do you think it is going to help integration if you know you are assumed guilty and constantly monitored by the security services purely because of the way you look?

No, it will harm integration. Which is why there has to be some reasonable implementation of these policies, of course, and it should obviously not be done in such a way that makes people feel like they are "assumed guilty" at all, much less "purely because of the way you look".

This kind of language is exactly the problem. That we must look at through these extreme kind of lenses that make everything be about overt racism, rather than sober understanding and evaluation of the problem, and how to address it.

if you go to some population of Muslims and use that kind of language, of course the result is going to be resentment and anger. But you don't have to use that kind of language, and of course the people who actually have to do these things don't use that kind of language.

But people who have an axe to grind are happy to stand up and claim that any reasonable and sober and even compassionate attempt to implement reasonable policies are "targeting you purely because of the way you look!"

The radical religious nuts, for example, will stand up and say that. And having otherwise reasonable people echo it doesn't help.

When some imam says "We should apply Sharia law in Canada! The Canadians hate us anyway, and they are all infidels!" they get tacit support from people who are willing to say "Yeah, focusing the attention of anti-terrorism efforts on Muslims is racism!"

We should leave the overtly racist tinged language to the actual radicals.

The only way some particular Muslim immingrants "knows you are assumed guilty" is if someone tells them they are assumed guilty. They will have people doing that of course, from their own radicals in their groups. We don't need to help them by telling them that ourselves because someone notes that Syrian refugees are a obvious security threat and need to be carefully vetted.

[Solmyr]

No, it will harm integration. Which is why there has to be some reasonable implementation of these policies, of course, and it should obviously not be done in such a way that makes people feel like they are "assumed guilty" at all, much less "purely because of the way you look".

How about only monitoring people when you actually have reasonable proof that they might commit a terror attack, rather than just because they were born in Aleppo, have a beard, and pray towards Mecca? That seems like a reasonable implementation to me.