(Via @ami_angelwings, via Roderick.)

This is from a recent report from CBC News:

The Bank of Canada purged the image of an Asian-looking woman from its new $100 banknotes after focus groups raised questions about her ethnicity.

The original image intended for the reverse of the plastic polymer banknotes, which began circulating last November, showed an Asian-looking woman scientist peering into a microscope.

The image, alongside a bottle of insulin, was meant to celebrate Canada’s medical innovations.

But eight focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 banknote series were especially critical of the choice of an Asian for the largest denomination.

Some have concerns that the researcher appears to be Asian, says a 2009 report commissioned by the bank from The Strategic Counsel, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

. . . The bank immediately ordered the image redrawn, imposing what a spokesman called a “neutral ethnicity” for the woman scientist who, now stripped of her Asian features, appears on the circulating note. Her light features appear to be Caucasian.

The original image was not designed or intended to be a person of a particular ethnic origin, bank spokesman Jeremy Harrison said in an interview, citing policy that eschews depictions of ethnic groups on banknotes.

But obviously when we got into focus groups, there was some thought the image appeared to represent a particular ethnic group, so modifications were made.

Harrison declined to provide a copy of the original image, produced by a design team led by Jorge Peral of the Canadian Bank Note Co., which was a test design only and never made it into circulation.

Nor would he indicate what specific changes were made to the woman researcher’s image to give her a so-called neutral ethnicity. . . .

Because, you see, the way to give someone a neutral ethnicity is to make them look White. You might think that that’s not so neutral after all; you might even think that putting a white person on the bill does seem a bit like depicting a member of a particular ethnic group. But you’ve got to remember that an ethnicity is a social marker, and white people aren’t socially marked out from the background. Because as far as the Bank of Canada and its focus groups are concerned, white people are the social background. An East Asian scientist is part of a particular ethnic group, but a white scientist is not, because white Canadians don’t have ethnicities. Only colorful people do.

Also.

• Whiteness Studies 101: Ethnicity.
• Whiteness Studies 102: Intended audience.
• Whiteness Studies 103: Ethnic food and authenticity.
• Whiteness Studies 104: Class, cuisine and authenticity.
• Whiteness Studies 105: Discovery.

From machamechamama. It makes a couple claims toward the end of the full post that I’m not so sure about. But I found this helpful. Via zhinxy.

intersectionality was not "invented" (if you will) as a way to understand "privilege." It was created as a way to make varying communities visible and create justice accordingly.

in other words. rather than: a white man has more privilege than a black man or a white woman has more privilege than men of color and we know this because of intersectionality—

it is: in our community, we've decided that desegregation is the way to address in equality. but if we shift our lens to look at the needs of a black woman who is pregnant and poor—will desegregation help her? or does she need a different solution? Or a more complicated solution? like desegregation AND the creation of local economies that she can more easily survive in?

intersectionality at its core is about justice—and that focus on justice means that it is organically focusing on solutions through making the multiple needs of shifting communities visible—and recognizing that one person is a part of multiple communities all at the same time.

it existed as a critique of and a solution to almost every single leftist "movement" in the US—which almost universally focused on one single solution as the answer to injustice for all (think: ending patriarchy as the solution for feminists, desegregation as the solution for the black community, destroying capitalism as the solution for the white community, ending slavery as the solution for abolitionists, etc) . . .

— machamechamama (July 19, 2012). Boldface added.

Whole thing here.

In Tacoma, a few months ago, a woman called 911 seeking protection when a fight with a guest turned violent. Unfortunately, when you call 911 they send the cops, and government police are not interested in protecting you; they are interested in controlling the situation. The victim in this case is a black woman who has been deaf since birth. The cops were told ahead of time that she was deaf, but what with a situation to control, when they showed up at the apartment they tortured her with a taser, handcuffed her, and hauled her off to jail for running at the police in an assaultive manner. She was running outside to meet the police, so that they could protect her from the person that was beating her up. Instead, a white police officer, Ryan Koskovich, screamed at her, whipped out his taser to drive her to the ground with a painful electrical shock, and then handcuffed her and arrested her, all because she didn’t stop running immediately when they bellowed commands at her that she could not hear. The police claimed, in reports that they wrote up after the fact, that they had also held a hand out. Other people in the neighborhood were watching and nobody else says they saw the cops hold a hand up. Of course, it’s possible that nobody saw it because it was 11:30 at night and dark; but then, that might be a reason for the police to think that someone might not necessarily be able to see their hands, and might not necessarily be able to hear their bellowed commands, and perhaps they ought to adopt a different strategy from maximal confrontation and Taser first, ask questions later. But that of course is only the sort of thing that you do if you give a damn about not torturing and imprisoning innocent people.

Officer Ryan Koskovich, Tacoma, Washington
Tasered, handcuffed and imprisoned deaf assault victim Lashonn White
Photo from NY Daily News

Police use Taser on deaf crime victim

TACOMA, Wash. — KIRO TV's investigative unit has discovered Tacoma police used force to arrest and handcuff an innocent deaf woman after she called 911 for their help.

Instead of an apology, she ended up bloody and in jail for nearly three days without an interpreter before a prosecutor declined to press charges.

After months of digging, investigative reporter Chris Halsne found significant discrepancies in the official police version of events leading up to Lashonn White's arrest.

Late in the evening on April 6, White said she called for police assistance after a guest reportedly attacked her in her own apartment.

. . . Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) logs show Tacoma police officer Ryan Koskovich and his partner, Michael Young, were outside White's apartment complex in about six minutes.

It also reflects that officers received texts along the way stating, Person doing the hitting is a Sophia and Vict. is Lashonn White.

In addition, it appears from internal police records obtained by KIRO Team 7 Investigators, Koskovich and his partner were repeatedly given information that the victim could not hear a thing.

. . . To her, what happened next defies common sense — especially, for a woman with no criminal record, no arrests and just one minor driving violation on her record.

Within seconds of running outside to meet police, Officer Koskovich pulled his Taser and fired a two-barbed electric wire into White's ribs and stomach.

All I'm doing is waving my hands in the air, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground and then handcuffed. It was almost like I blacked out. I was so dizzy and disoriented, White said.

Witnesses said White began bleeding heavily from her knuckles and the right side of her face swelled up immediately after she hit the pavement following the Taser jolt.

Pictures acquired by Team 7 Investigators also show injuries to her cheek, chin, ribs, neck and arms.

Worse yet to White was the incredible confusion that came with suddenly being handcuffed, under arrest and without the ability to communicate with Tacoma officers, who had no sign language skills.

The next thing I know, they took me to jail. Told me to stand up, you're going to jail. I said, What? What have I done? I couldn't figure it out. I had no idea what was going on, said White.

. . . Margaret Sims's apartment is right over the spot where White fell to the ground after being tased. She said it was around 11:30 at night and dark, but she heard Lashonn screaming in pain and ran to the balcony.

I hollered down and said, She's deaf and can't speak!

Sims says she went down to the street and spoke with officers while Lashonn was still in handcuffs. She told us during an on-camera interview that the police officers at the scene admitted there was a misunderstanding.

They had tased her because he thought she was coming at him, but what she was doing was running to him. But he said, stop and he didn't put his hand up. He just said, stop and she couldn't understand that, replied Sims.

Another apartment tenant, Geraldine Warren, said she also heard the commotion and talked to police.

They just told her to halt. She kept running, she can't hear—she's deaf. I said, Aren't you supposed to say halt like that? asked Warren holding up her right hand.

Tacoma police arrested Lashonn on two criminal charges, simple assault and obstruction of a public servant (law enforcement officer). Then they carted her off to jail. She spent 60 hours there^[1] – also without an interpreter- before a city prosecutor reviewed her case and asked that charges not be filed at all. . . . White said despite her repeated requests to police for a certified ASL interpreter, one was never provided.

— Police use Taser on deaf crime victim, by Chris Halsne, for KIRO TV 7 (5 August 2012)

The Incident Is Being Investigated. But Police Officer Naveed Benjamin has already said that the actions of the officers do not appear to be outside of policy. Probably not. And what does that tell you about the policy?

This is of course not the first time this sort of thing has happened. See for example GT 2007-12-07: Law and Orders #4: Wichita cops take control by shocking a deaf man for not following orders he couldn’t hear, GT 2007-11-11: Taser first, ask questions later, AP 2005-03-22: Autistic Teenager is Beaten by Deputies After Being Mistaken for a Prowler, GT 2008-02-05: Rapists in uniform, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

1. ^[1][In other words, a crime victim was imprisoned for nearly three days, because police could not speak her language and chose to respond to her with escalating brutality before they knew what was going on. –CJ.]↩

From Rikki Cheese and Spencer Lubitz at ABC 13 Action News:

Civil rights advocates want those treated unfairly by police to speak out

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) — A group of civil rights advocates want to hear from people who feel they’ve been mistreated by Metro police.

People have been shot, beaten and tasered by Metro officers across the department’s jurisdiction. Civil rights groups hope airing those stories in public forums could help change police behavior.

Mitchell Crooks was beaten by a cop for videotaping a burglary investigation across the street from his home near Desert Inn and Maryland Parkway. Erik Scott was shot and killed at a Costco in Summerlin. Both Caucasian men. Civil rights advocates say they’re not Metro’s usual suspects in officer-involved shootings, or accusations of excessive use of force.

I can’t say whether there’s a conscious racial bias, but certainly the evidence reveals a disproportionate impact on minority populations, and that’s just brought out by the data, Staci Pratt with the ACLU said.

Pratt says 2010 census data shows the largest proportion of officer-involved shooting occur in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods in Clark County.

Advocacy groups also want to hear from people who feel they’ve been mistreated by law enforcement in all ways, and who feel their complaints have not been heard.

Pratt applauds Metro’s recent changes in their use of force policy and for accepting recommendations from the ACLU and NAACP but says officers need to be more sensitive to the people they police.

That may not be a conscious thing on Metro’s part, Pratt said. But it certainly is an issue that needs to be raised and addressed.

It is good that they are doing this. Legal reforms and use of force policies don’t do a damn thing, but here and elsewhere they may be reflections of, and concessions to, something much more poewrful. The only thing that is ever going to restrain police abuse is a culture of popular resistance, public exposure and social accountability for abusive cops, and hard driving community activism.

Support your neighborhood CopWatch.

See also:

• GT 2011-10-10: Your constitutional rights have nothing to do with the law.
• GT 2009-09-16: The Police Beat: Shot in the Back
• GT 2009-02-23: The Metro Police Beat
• GT 2008-12-05: Don’t turn your back on the Wolfpack
• Nevada CopBlock: Keeping Police Accountable in Nevada

Here’s something from a recent story at Discovery News. The story is actually about some research that’s being done on John Cabot’s expeditions across the Atlantic in the late 15th century. Anyway, this is how Discovery decided to headline the story:

COLUMBUS MAY NOT HAVE BEEN FIRST TO AMERICA.

Really? You don’t say.

Let me just mention that the question under investigation in the story — whatever may be the case, whether or not the questions they’re looking into about John Cabot turn up anything new or not — it could not possibly have anything to do with the truth or falsity of the thing in the headline. We already know perfectly well about that, unless there are some people whose arrival counts, and other people whose arrival did not.

See also:

• GT 2008-10-10: Whiteness studies 104: Class, cuisine, and authenticity
• GT 2008-07-05: Whiteness studies 103: Ethnic food and authenticity
• GT 2006-02-04: Whiteness studies 102: Intended audience
• GT 2006-01-26: Whiteness studies 101: Ethnicity