We've just been through the most analyzed five minutes anybody ever spent in a bathroom. But there's still one little-noticed part of it that caught my attention. At one point during the taped exchange between Sen. Larry Craig and Sgt. Dave Karsnia of the Minneapolis airport police, Karsnia tries to shame Craig into admitting that he was looking for sex:
Karsnia: . . . I don’t disrespect you but I’m disrespected right now and I’m not trying to act like I have all kinds of power or anything, but you’re sitting here lying to a police officer. . . .
Karsnia: I just, I just, I guess, I guess I’m gonna say I’m just disappointed in you sir. I’m just really am. I expect this from the guy that we get out of the hood. I mean, people vote for you.
Craig: Yes, they do. (inaudible)
Karsnia: unbelievable, unbelievable.
Craig: I’m a respectable person and I don’t do these kinds of…
It seems to me that the phrase, “the guy that we get out of the hood,” is an implied racial reference. It refers specifically to blacks, though one could say the officer meant to refer only to young black men from the ghetto who, in the officer's view, are prone to commit crimes.
Either way, it’s still race-specific in a case that otherwise has no obvious racial dimension. To shame Craig into telling the truth, the officer could have used a different example, like, “I expect this from some punk we get off the street.” Or, “I expect this from some low-life, but not a Senator.” It’s also fairly clear from the context that the officer is not associating blacks with bathroom cruising, but with dishonesty and "disrespect" toward the police.
Why would Karsnia use a race-specific reference in this context? First, the officer may associate blacks in general, or at least those from “the hood,” with bad conduct. In the heat of the exchange, this particular example is the one that first comes to his mind because black men from poor neighborhoods are the kind of people he would most associate with dishonesty and disrespectful behavior.
Second, the officer may have expected that Craig would immediately understand the reference and be especially shamed by it as a law-abiding white person. “Not only were you engaged in this tawdry behavior but now you’re acting like a black thug who lies to a police officer about it," he seems to be saying. I doubt the officer would have used the “hood” reference if he’d been talking to a suspect who was black. It simply wouldn’t have worked against a black suspect, whether that suspect was from "the hood" or not. It would have backfired even if used against, say, a wealthy black lawyer in a business suit. Further, in the presence of a black person the officer would have been sensitized to using a racial reference. It only works as a shaming technique if it’s one white person speaking to another, with no blacks around to object.
The whole thing passed by unnoticed in their conversation; one of the interesting things about it was how matter-of-fact it was. Craig had no audible reaction to the comment except to insist that he is "respectable" — unlike those people from "the hood." The officer made no other racial reference, and of course used no blatantly racist slur, which would be unacceptable in senatorial company.
The moment also passed by unnoticed in the national conversation about the scandal. With just a few exceptions (see, for example, here and here), it hasn’t even been a blip on the blogs. I've seen nothing about it on television.
We can’t draw any grand conclusions from this one phrase in one interview. By itself, it’s not an indictment of our society, or of police in general, or even of just the Minneapolis airport police. If it’s a racist moment, it’s the kind of casual and coded racism that doesn’t even register with most people; it’s part of the background of our lives, so pervasive and common it’s invisible. That may be why it has gone unremarked. Its significance, if any, is that it seems like the sort of thing that happens every day in the interaction of cops and citizens, where presumptions and attitudes about race factor silently into all kinds of decisions small and large. Here we have one very small example of it on tape.
But maybe I've misinterpreted the reference or overstated what it may mean. I’m curious what others think. Please confine any comments to this specific issue, not the many other issues raised by the Craig scandal (e.g., whether he actually committed a crime or what evidence might have been introduced to undermine Karsnia's credbility at trial).
UPDATE: Some commenters suggest that because "the hood" can have non-racial meanings, the cop must not have intended to refer to inner-city blacks here. But coded race references work, when they're used, precisely because they can have non-racial meanings. In a society that condemns overt racism, they send the message you need to send to your target audience and provide deniability to everyone else.
I agree that the reference to "the hood" can mean lots of things. I've heard gay people refer to predominantly gay neighborhoods as the hood. The language of hip-hop has seeped into popular culture and has been appropriated to refer to lots of things, depending on context. But the question is, what's the most likely meaning of "the hood" when a white cop is interrogating a 65-year-old white suspect and trying to shame him into a confession? That he's lying like the people in a poor white neighborhood? Like the people who live in crime-prone neighborhoods in general? Like the people who live in the cop's own neighborhood? I doubt it, but it's entirely possible I'm wrong, which is why I raised the question.
Unless you think that all poor urban folk are black and all poor whites are rural, or that only black people abbreviate their words, I don't see why you would make any racial inference.
"the hood" is obviously a reference to a poor predominately black ghetto area. that is the way it is used in everyday language. you can make arguments that this isn't what the cop was referring to...but they are rather contrived and lack any sort of basis.
however, whether the cop is genuinely racist or was trying to provoke a response out of the senator can't be answered based on this alone.
you do realize that the objection that you use against my post works just as well for your post?
Bear in mind that although it's got a racist edge that doesn't mean anything about the cop. Remember that he's a professional and when he does something like that, it's just part of his professional role.
So just because white people didn't invent the term, they can't have adopted it? I don't think that white people came up with gansta rap, yet that music form seems to be extremely popular with the mostly upper-class white kids who live in my 'hood.
As e said, the association of "hood" with any specific race is quite outdated.
DC: No, I prefer All in the Family ;)
That said, I do not think Sen. Craig's protests that he is "respectable" were necessarily in response to the whole "hood" issue. My guess is that he was asserting that he is a respectable man in the sense that he is not the sort of man who cruises for sex in public bathrooms.
Well, five years ago I was in high school in Saint Paul, Minnesota and, while I can't be certain this is what I would have thought then, to me "the hood" carries racial connotations only in a historical sense.
Thinking about NYC, where I live, almost all the neighborhoods that would be described as "the 'hood" are predominantly black or Hispanic. Can someone from another city provide an example of a neighborhood that might be termed "the 'hood" that is mostly populated by white people? I'm guessing there aren't very many.
what gave you the impression that i am a sheltered kid?
i grew up the suburbs of chicago...went to high school and college in LA...and am now a med student in chicago. i'm white from a upper middle class family.
you may have broad experiences but i doubt they are broader than mine. i have never once heard westwood (a wealthy part of LA) being referred to as the hood but i have often heard the more run down areas and the poorer areas of LA being referred to as the hood. same thing as where i'm living now...north chicago and waukegan (both predominately poor and black) are referred to as the hood or the ghetto, but libertyville and vernon hills (wealthier whiter areas) very rarely are. when i lived in the farm country of illinois and indiana i never even heard the word "hood" used by anyone.
so yes, based on my extensive experience of living in both wealthy and poor and white and minority areas, i can say that the hood definitely refers to a poor, predominately minority area.
now then, what makes your experiences better or more inclusive than mine?
Should the first few posts not lead you to question your apparent insularity with respect to the meaning of "'hood" to others?
by this logic, 1) shouldn't dale's post give you doubt about your interpretation? and 2) i am familiar with the writings of some of the authors you are referring to and i would be genuinely surprised if they said anything else (see any post concerning muslims for an example)
Should the police worry about a nationwide law-pontificating audience for comments, or just be held to a standard reasonable in their context?
the police should definitely worry about overt and covert racism of all sorts.
Where I live, "the guy that we get out of the hood" is in fact equivalent to "some punk we get off the street," although perhaps without the additional punk element. I.e., if somebody around here told me the police had arrested "a guy out of the hood," I could draw no reliable conclusion about that guy's race.
"Punk" itself may have racial overtones; I don't think I've ever heard a black guy described as a punk.
It may of course be different elsewhere.
Plenty of white people live in the hood - especially in Minneapolis.
So what?
That doesn't mean that saying something about "the guy that we get out of the hood" is a racist statement.
1. "Predominantly" does not mean "exclusively"
2. The guy that the cops gets out of the hood, arrests from this poor (and predominantly minority, incidentally) neighborhood is being arrested. He isn't any old guy, he is a bad guy.
3. The point is simply that the guy that they arrest from a bad neighborhood is often disrespectful. This has nothing to do with his race-- it has to do with his being from a bad neighborhood. The fact that these neighborhoods are often predominantly minority is not relevant. And the guy they get out of there could easily be white.
I second that. I was thinking the same-- whereas "guy from the hood" means nothing in terms of race to me, I often think "white kid" when I hear "punk"
If someone was talking about a white acquaintance and mentioned that "he lives in the 'hood" I would not be shocked. I would just assume that the guy was one of the relatively few white people living in a mostly minority neighborhood. I think that most people would have the same reaction.
I wonder if the demographics of where we live may be playing a role here. A poster from St. Paul (11.7% black, which is less than the national average of 12.8%) and a poster from northeast of Minneapolis (the city itself is 18% black, but the northeastern suburbs are presumably whiter due to white flight), and a poster from an unidentified "town" all agree that "hood" is not a racially tinged term.
The one poster who identified him/herself as being from New York City (26.6% black) said that "hood" is a racially tinged term, as did a poster from LA (which has only 11.2% black, but 46.5% hispanic population). I live in Boston (25.3% black) and agree that it's racially tinged.
We may indeed be speaking different versions of the English language, based on whether the cities we live in have a substantial black/hispanic population or not.
Eminem and a lot of the white kids who wanted to be him a few years ago, some of them were poor whites from "the hood", right? You're reaching finding racial overtones, when he meant more "you're a politician, not a kid brought up on the streets". Now that could be any race too, right?
"Some guy from the hood" may evoke racial overtones for folks who aren't part of the Gen Y culture, but nowadays, it doesn't have such a racial connotation for younger folks. It generally connotes a poor, inner-city neighborhood where crime is a greater everyday problem and life is contrasted to middle-class suburban life.
Even if we assume 'hood' does refer to black urban neighbourhoods, can you explain more clearly what makes the phrase racist rather than just a race specific reference? If a suspect does behave just like "the guy that we get out of the hood", why can't the officer say so?
I honestly don't understand how the reference is racist. I'm not arguing that it's not racist: I just don't understand the reasoning in your post.
You skipped me. I am from NYC and do not believe that the 'hood has any racial connotations. I have lived in East and South Williamsburg Brooklyn and Harlem for quite a few years total. I don't currently live there.
Would Senator Craig have understood "the guy that we get out of the hood" to mean anything other than a black guy? Did the officer intend him to understand it as a reference to anyone other than a black guy? If you answer yes to either of these questions, you need help.
By the way, from what I've read, I dislike Craig as a politician and as a man. But I think it was ridiculous to arrest him for what he did.
ahh..but i've never said it is a racist term. i said it refers to predominately poor and minority areas. if you'd taken the time to read my original post i specifically said that we could not call the officer a racist based on this one comment. just because a word has racial connotations does not necessarily mean it is racist.
whether or not a word is racist depends largely on the context of its use and we don't know the full context in this case. in this case i am leaning towards a racist comment but that also doesn't mean the officer is a racist as per my original comment.
and which ethnicity tends to predominate in these poor inner city neighborhoods where crime is a greater everyday problem?
Racism is often tough for privileged folks to see
and
I grew up privileged
i gotta give you credit for one thing...you certainly know how to undermine your own argument.
As a resident of the hood, I know the type of person to whom he was referring. He wasn't referring to the elderly old Black ladies I see walking to church.
As evidence that the officer was trying to make some sort of racial innuendo, this phrase alone seems pretty weak. If he had used the phrase "punk", people would have thought of white neo-nazis, "scumbag" probably would have been perceived as referring to white people, "low-life" might have had no racial connotation, etc. It seems to me that he just happened to use a phrase that for some people refers more to African-Americans more than other people. He could have just as easily used one of those other words.
That said, if this officer had a history of using that particular phrase to white people, of only giving traffic tickets to African-Americans, etc., then I might view this phrase as some evidence that something more was going on here.
I'm with you. When I think "'hood", I think class and behavior much more than race. I hear the police officer as trying to draw a distinction between the (ex-)Senator and a hoodlum. Are there racial connotations to the term "hoodlum" that I'm unaware of?
I do find it interesting that the liberal/progressive folks self-admit to equating class with race more so than conservative folks. I find implicit assumption that black equals poor to be highly racist. Yet for some reason it's the conservative mindset that is always accused of racism. Why is that?
I had that thought, too. As far as "the hood" the interogation theme seems to be:
"All the time I pick up guys from the 'hood (ignorant, thuggist types) who try to lie their way out of something: a guy like you ought to be ashamed to act like them, and should instead confess to the nice officer."
And while I tend to think Craig was looking for a quickie, this type of police interrogation seems extremely inappropriate. Not unconstitutional, but ridiculous. The officer's whining toward the end is the most ridiculous thing in this story, and that's saying something.
where in this thread do people actually do this?
Look at every posting (including yours) where the belief that any reference to residents of the 'hood' (meaning poor, crime ridden neighborhoods) must refer to black people.
Although to be fair, while writing this response I realize that you and others aren't necessarily saying that black equals poor, you're saying that poor equals black. Still racist, but not in the same sense. I suppose it doesn't matter if you discriminate against poor white folks, though. Can you maintain your progressive bona fides with that form of racism? Does it help?
i've always said poor, predominately black (or minority) areas. both are necessary and neither one is sufficient alone. the fact that you think i am saying that all poor areas are also black or that all black areas are poor is poor reading comprehension on your part.
you're saying that poor equals black.
no i'm not. the hood refers to poor predominately black areas. a poor predominately white area would be referred to as trailer trash or something else.
However, what is equally important is that not only are there non-minorities who live in the hood but there are many minorities who do not live in the hood. Thus I fail to see what makes this a coded racial message since it refers primarily to CLASS distinctions that happen to be correlated with racial ones (both objectively and in people's minds).
I mean I could make the same argument about the term 'some punk from the street'. After all we don't say suburban white kids, even when arrested for criminal behavior, are from the street. Thus being from the street is something that is predominately applied to minority youth and most likely will call up the image of a minority in a rich white person's mind (rightly or wrongly).
Ultimately it seems by your standard that ANY attempt to talk about the group of people who tend to be crime prone and disrespectful to the police will NECESSARILY be a coded racial message because most people will think of a minority when they think of an example.
Our conceptions of the hood differ. When I hear 'hood', I think poor, urban, and high crime rate. I don't immediately think of race. Curiously, when I think of 'trailer trash', I think poor, rural and explicitly white. I don't claim immunity from racial generalizations, only that 'hood' doesn't carry that connotation with me.
Hewart,
I believe you're making the same mistake I did. I don't claim that every liberal/progressive reads 'hood' as a racially tinged term, only that liberals/progressives are more likely to do so more than conservatives. In other words (and only based on this thread), if you believe 'hood' is racial code, you are a progressive/liberal. Rejecting that code doesn't imply that you are conservative.
That said, my original statement ("liberal/progressive folks self-admit to equating class with race more so than conservative folks") lacked nuance so I can understand why you read it as more absolute than I intended it. To be more clear: I read this thread as saying if you find 'hood' to be racial code, you are liberal/progressive (Aside: can't the left pick a label and stick to it? At the very least it would save some typing, and God knows how much CO2 that would save...). I did not mean that everyone who rejects that code is conservative.
Just because in your rarified pseudo academic imaginations the phrase "the hood" has racist connotations, it does not follow that most users of the phrase (who are white and use the phrase self-referentially) also use it with racist overtones. Get out of the ivory tower and talk to people who live real lives.
The 'hood usually seems to mean "a specific area, which, because we're either from the same city or one of us is from a well-known city such as New York, is probably clear to both of us, but might mean some place else or areas very much like it to other listeners" in pop culture. At least one reference substitutes "the block" (Lopez, Olivier, Barnes, Oliver, Deyo, Parker, Sterlin, and Miro, 2002,) and "ghetto" has similar contemporary, not particularly pre-WWII "we never leave because no one else speaks our language" usage (Michel, Jean, Jones, Gibb, Gibb, Gibb, Brown, Byrd, and Lenhoff, 1998.)
To me, "the hood" means any place which reminds me of lower class (in the sense of "stealing shopping carts because we're bored")/economically poor, MTV/BET/VH1 thug/prostitute themes. I know people who still use it to actually refer to particular places in regular conversation (rather than pop culture) but most of the people I know only do so in a derisive "I'm using this word because some goofy people still think it's cool" sort of way. It doesn't really have a solid racial meaning for me, but I've lived in places where most of the poor people were white (parts of Ohio,) where they were Latino (Los Angeles,) or where they were black (Connecticut,) and some where the poor people were more rural than everyone else ("the hood" definitely implies an urban situation,) so a lot of these terms are ambiguous to me now.
Anyway, if that's the only reference, I wouldn't make much of it. The stuff about expecting a Senator to behave in a more dignified fashion struck me as somewhat naive or old-fashioned, though, which made me sad.
So, then, it was actually an antisemtic term all along?
I am reminded of when I was 13, when I and my [male] classmates claimed we could find a sexual connotation in *anything*. Of course, Larry stumped me after a long run of phrases with a simple sentence involving a box. I did not yet know that "box" was slang and could have been easily dealt with.
Here, because the police officer did not specifically say "minority group member," I believe he was unintentionally racist when he contrasted someone in Larry Craig's position in life to someone from the hood. The hood is where poor folks live, who have to hustle to get by, who might have to break the law to survive, and, to protect themselves, might lie about what they did. For these reasons, although lily-white, the ratty trailer park zone that Eminem grew up in could quite rightly be called a hood. Unlike thugs from the hood, United States Senators are not poor folks who have to hustle to get by, and therefore their transgressions would not be motivated by the need to survive. Thus their transgressions are inexcusable, and lies to protect themselves are unjustifiable. But if you were a minority group member from the hood, you are quite justified in calling the remark racist.
Nick
Ummm.... I don't care.
Exactly the point I was trying to convey.
I do not believe that Karsnia's use of the phrase, "the guy that we get out of the hood", is inherently racially biased, and I'd read the transcript several times before reading this comment. I read it to be a reference to a contemporary cultural artifact, the elevation of gangsterism to acceptability in society, that Karsnia felt was detrimental. On reflection though, I realise that I was working from additional data:
Karsnia seems to be a motivated young man who grew up on the Canadian border, and whose police experience is entirely at the Metropolitan Airport. For you to advance this, based only upon one phrase, as being racially biased against blacks is in my mind more indicative of your own geo/pol/social slant. Have you ever spent much time west of the Rockies? Ask Professor V. if he believes the term 'hood' carries with it a specific racial bias against black. That you subsequently continue to defend the assertion without any further justification other than the extremely hazy concept of 'code words', which you did not further describe, causes me to wonder if you may have motivations of agenda.
[deleted off-topic material]
Well, I guess you're racist, because you just offended me by implying I'm racist.
By your own standards, you have no argument against that because there is no such thing as being unreasonably offended, and my statement that I was offended takes priority over anything else.
the hood is the hood. it only has a racial context if you want it to. i spent a good part of my life living and working in the hood. that says nothing about my race.
i have interrogated people and referenced the hood. so what?
it is UNDOUBTEDLY a reference to class. it is NOT a reference to race.
the same people who would say we should not associate (stereotype) poverty with blacks (here's a hint. blacks do not make up a majority of the poor in this country), now say that we should associate blacks with the hood.
that's absurd.
the hood is a place. it's also a cultural thang. eminem has an association with the hood. oj simpson does not. yet, eminem is white. and oj is black... how confusing?
get real
as for the reference to white trash, while it doesn't mean the officer would have been a racist if he used that term, white trash CLEARLY has a specific racial element. "the hood" does not.
i remember guarding a prisoner at the hospital who had just been shot by a partner of mine. he was a white guy FROM THE HOOD.
he looked at me and said that there would not be any marches for "justice" for him, or cries for the police to be fired for shooting him cause he was just "poor white trash" and he didn't have any jesse jacksons or sharptons coming to his aid.
now, that is a person from the hood who understands reality
and the urban hiphop world is not "the black world"
plenty of blacks detest hiphop and plenty of whites love it, consume it, and participate in its production
this whole argument is so absurd. last i checked, the NBA is disproportionately black. does that mean that if the cop had referenced larry craig having a jumpshot like an NBA player, that this was a 'racial reference'
To my casual white middle-class understanding, 'hood is a slang term whose contemporary currency largely originated in black vernacular for "neighborhood," but which now has multiple senses and uses that evolved or radiated from that one. Some might use it as a term to refer to black neighborhoods, others as a term for any neighborhood, and still others as a term for poor neighborhoods. Because I personally tend to hear the term most frequently in the context of black popular culture (movies, rap, etc.), the primary meaning, to my ears, is associated with that context, but others may hear and use the term in different contexts. We could argue about which usage is "correct," but maybe several are -- and even if someone won the correctness argument, it wouldn't follow that the officer's usage conformed to the argument-winner's.
the job of an interrogation is to get the truth (contrary to the belief of defense attorneys, it is NOT to get a confession)
anything that can help build rapport, shock, or any other psychological tool that can help strip away defensiveness and open an interrogation subject towards revealing truth is a good method. (within the law of course)
if i am interviewing, a child rape suspect (and i think it might be useful) is it bad for me to say that i think sex with 13 yr olds isn't a big deal and should be legal?
the answer is no.
if i am interviewing a drug dealer and i tell him my best friend used to deal in college and he was a really cool guy is that a bad thing?
no
if i am interviewing a white supremacist and i (assuming i was white myself) suggest or outright state sympathy with his beliefs, again is this bad police work?
of course not
if i am interviewing a vicious mysoginist rapist, might it benefit me to act like a mysoginist who empathizes with him?
yes.
i once got a confession (with no evidence whatsoever... it was an interrogation on a hunch, and non-custodial) on a multiple arsonist, burglar by appealing to class differences. specifically the guy had torched the houses of rich neighbors out of (among other things) a sense of class envy. did i use some pejoratives in reference to rich people? hell, ya. did he confess? yes.
the cop actually used some pretty astute psychology. he's got a guy who is obviously NOT happy with his situation, who feels shamed, scared, etc. by using the "hood" reference he makes an appeal to dignity (and what politician doesn't have a sense of dignity, however false) that he is BETTER than the rifraff? it's an appeal to craigs sense that he is "better" than the situation he is in by likening him to a person that craig might presumably think is BENEATH him.
in some situations, it pays to make the subject think you are much stupider than you are (the columbo technique), in others, that you are much smarter than him. you can appeal to catholic guilt, white pride, black pride, class envy, lust, envy, greed, or whatever you think might be useful. that's good police work.
cops should use interrogation techniques that are EFFECTIVE. not those that can survive 16 levels of semiotics analysis by those who have never interrogated a suspect, investigated a crime, etc.
again, hood is NOT a racial reference. it's a CLASS reference. but i am saying ASSUMING he did use a racial reference it says NOTHING about whether the cop is racist himself.
Then, Waldensian, I'm glad that I was able to convey your point both more articulately than you and without resorting to the tired fallback of making superfluous personal insults.
Returning to the subject at hand, some other posters say that because white suburban kids and Vanilla Ice have appropriated the word "hood", it has become race-neutral. (Eminem is, I think we would all agree, not in the same category as a mere white poser like Vanilla Ice or the wiggers of Middle America).
I think that an argument based on the linguistic usages of white posers seems a little weak to me. For example, just because these suburban white teens sometimes call their friends "my niggaz" doesn't mean that the term "niggaz" has lost its racial connotation. It just means that these white kids are trying to emulate black culture by appropriating black slang for themselves. Their act of borrowing does not automatically change the underlying meaning of the word. Shouldn't the same reasoning apply to the word "hood"?
exactly right.
there are both whites and blacks who are POSERS.
a black guy who grows up in a rich neighborhood and creates a fake gangsta hood persona is a poser. a white guy who grows up in the hood (a la eminem) is not a poser
his idea is that whites using "hood" are posers, and blacks aren't. which is, arguably, racist in itself but i aint going to play that game. it is, however, factually wrong
this reminds me of a lot of the arguments among music snobs that white guys playing the blues are automatically "posers". this is just as stupid as saying black dudes playing hardcore punk are posers (tell that to DC from bad brains). just because an area (or a music style) started out as being associated with one race predominantly :) does not mean that anybody else using, or claiming that term is a poser.
like i said, i spent a good portion of my life living and working in THE HOOD and regardless of my race, it's a part of me.
my race is irrelevant to that fact.
a black guy who rides bulls for a living and then goes to a country western bar at night with a big ole belt buckle, some wranglers, etc. is not a POSER , despite the fact that many may consider rodeo culture a "white thang".
same concept
you fail to grasp the fundamental difference between a poser and someone who actually does something.
the black guy in your cowboy example is not a poser. any person regardless of race who wears cowboy clothes and talks constantly about how much fun it is to ride bulls without actually ever being in the same state as a real live bull is a poser.
eminem is not a poser because he has an actual rapper (one of the few successful white rappers, but that's besides the point). Michael Bolton from Office Space is a poser.
the concept is really very simple...it shouldn't be difficult to grasp.
Superfluous insults like "You're not as articulate as I am," for example? Hysterical.
Facts are facts. Where I live, saying that you have arrested a "guy from the hood" is a race neutral statement. That's just the way it is here. And we do in fact have "the hood," and I pretty much live in it (arguably I'm on the yuppifying edge).
Incidentally, if I were arrested I suspect a cop might well say that he had arrested a guy from the hood. Knowing that, can you guess my race?
Your mileage may vary. Perhaps in Minneapolis there is a racist edge to this expression that we don't have here. I just don't know. But without more evidence along those lines, I think the OP is going too far.
Now back to your eyebrow raising.
But the cop seemed very professional in the rest of his conduct so I would hesitate to make a big deal about it.
which ethnicity tends to predominate in these poor inner city neighborhoods where crime is a greater everyday problem?
In St. Paul, the most likely answer is Hmong or Mexican, especially if you're talking about gangbangers. I grew up in Northeast Minneapolis, and lived until recently for several years in St. Paul. The term "hood" means, to me, any lower class neighborhood, and carries no racial connotation whatever (though I am of course aware of its origin in rap music).
—
BCLS (9.2.2007 5:07pm) observed:
I wonder if the demographics of where we live may be playing a role here. A poster from St. Paul (11.7% black, which is less than the national average of 12.8%) and a poster from northeast of Minneapolis (the city itself is 18% black, but the northeastern suburbs are presumably whiter due to white flight), and a poster from an unidentified "town" all agree that "hood" is not a racially tinged term.
I agree, local demographics play a role, but I'd say there's a stronger generational effect on the interpretation of "hood". And I detect nothing at all racist in the policeman's usage of the word during his interrogation of Craig. I would translate his meaning as, "I'd expect this kind of denial from some thug we dragged in off the street; but it's totally unbecoming from someone of your social station."
An aside: The "NE" (northeast) mentioned by an earlier commenter [Cory Olson (9.2.2007 4:48pm)] refers not to a northeastern suburb, but rather to the Northeast ("Nordeast") working class neighborhood of Minneapolis. That neighborhood spans the entire northeast corner of the city, everything east of the Mississippi and north of Hennepin Ave. (The NE city limits is at the intersection of 37th &Stinson, if you're looking at Google maps.) In the early 1900s this section of town was settled by immigrants from Italy and eastern Europe — old Nordeast, down by the river and east of Central Ave, probably has more Eastern Orthodox churches per square foot than elsewhere in the US, excepting maybe the mill towns near Pittsburgh; and if the church ain't Orthodox, it's Italian or Polish Catholic. In the past 10-20 years, the neighborhood's ethnicity has shifted due to an influx of blacks from North Minneapolis (on the west bank opposite Northeast), plus new immigrants from Mexico, Somalia, and various Arab countries. They're all residents of my old 'hood.
In poor neighborhoods referred to as "the hood," there's more law-breaking in ways that generate arrests (as opposed to snorting cocaine inside suburban mansions). People who pretend this isn't the case probably have not set foot in "the hood" for a long time.
Well, I didn't intend for that remark to be racist. Your being offended by it shows the pervasiveness of racism in our society.
There is nothing to agitate about when a white cop uses an arguably racially-tinged term as a psychological ploy to get a white defendant to confess.
But it is a psychological ploy. Not an accidental reference.
Suppose the cop was referring to a poor, black neighborhood. So what? What is the significance of that? Can you tell us why you are concerned?
I agree presumptions and attitudes about race factor silently into all kinds of decisions small and large. Many of those presumptions and attituds are unfortunately correct. The murder rate among blacks is about seven times that of whites. Many state prison systems have a 50% black population. We are told over and over by black leaders that there are more blacks in prison than in college.
Bill Cosby is hardly a racist, but he has been publicly saying this for several years. What does that say about his presumptions and attitudes?
I agree with you. I just think this whole "controversy" is much ado about nothing. In some circumstances, I would agree that a use of the word "hood" might indicate unpleasant racist views on the part of the speaker. But this was an interrogation.
Interrogators say all sorts of things they do not really believe during an interrogation as psychological ploys to get people to confess.
From a recent Google on Idaho...
This seems to suggest that Fred Flintlock's assumptions (Only because he's the last guy in the thread) about the number of poor black neighborhoods the cop has experience in to say more about the poster than anyone in Idaho...
Somewhere, Danial Patrick Moynihan is mumbling "We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Popewell.JPG
On another note, why would the cop say he expected this type of thing from somebody from the "hood"? If Craig had mugged someone or engaged in some other crime more closely linked to socioeconomic status, I would understand. But it seems to me that homo/bisexuals cruising for these anonymous thrill encounters would cover a pretty broad spectrum. This was, afterall, a major airport, not a gas station bathroom in the slums. And I'm sure many of the particiapnts of this sort of behavior are exactly like Craig - successful, respected members of the community who have to keep certain sexual proclivities clandestine (see, George Michael).
I would say that the racism insinuated here by Prof Carpenter on the part of Sgt. Karsnia is of such subtlety that it does not actually exist, except in in the author's imagination. Carpenter rightly questions whether it was a racist moment at all. My chess coach often chided me for "chasing ghosts", making unnecessary prophylactic moves in response to opponents' threats that were imagined.
Prof Carpenter: Forgive my bluntness, but I believe you are making a similar error here, using thin evidence and tortured logic to discover racism where none exists.
I agree with Carolina that this is likely what happened; but, then again, Professor Carpenter's point seems to be that someone who makes a racist remark in an interrogation is not a saint. Add in that he arrested Senator Craig for no good reason and this cop looks like a total shitbag.
Touche!! I sit corrected!!
Interestingly, before I saw that photo, if you had asked me the race of the guy staring down the barrel of Clint's .44 Mag in that famous scene, I would have guessed a white guy.
I just think that's flat wrong. It would still make perfect sense. If he said that to me, I'd be thinking of the typical guy -- very frequently white -- who gets busted in the crappy neighborhood on "Cops" and then lies his ass off. This happens in every single episode of Cops, usually about seven times.
White usually don't have "hoods" because the white underclass is--usually--more spread out, although certain suburbs near larger cities have their reputations. I am told by a retired banker in the upper part of Michigan's lower peninsula that there are small towns which require a good deal of police attention and small towns which don't, and they aren't all that different at first glance.
Had the cop been making a racist remark, he'd have referred to a race. Instead, he's making a distinction based on behavior. Were he racist, he'd have made a remark including the prosperous middle class and upper class blacks and latinos.
Yeah, and he wasn't talking to you. He was talking to a white Senator. And you clipped off part of the comment you were responding to. You didn't see the cop's face when he spoke. That's important. (Neither did I, but the point is there may have been nonverbal communication.) Moreover, the reason the rare white guy reference makes no sense is because he's rare. This cop is not a statistcian or a sociologist; he's just making a crude comment. The idea that he's referring to COPS is some theory an undergrad would bandy about in SOC: TV is responsible for shaping cultural attitudes. There is no reason to believe this guy was conducting a seminar on the cultural significance of COPS. If he had meant to refer to the rare white guy in a predominantly black ghetto, he would have used language that clearly indicated that. He did no such thing, and you're just trying to cover up for this shitbag, for who knows what reason. I would sincerely hope you don't identify with a dude who makes a living luring lonely gay people into bogus arrests.
I would imagine there are millions of black people who could refute this claim.
1. We cannot definitively say the policeman was using the term "hood" in a racist way. It seems that whether it is racist or not depends in what part of the country one lives in.
2. Whether it was racist or not, it was valid in the context of an interrogation. It says nothing about the views of the policeman about various races.
3. Whether one can conclude someone is racist or not, by the comments they make, depends on the motivations of the commenter. If someone with little knowledge of American culture used a racist term, with no knowledge that the term was racist, that person is not a racist, though the minority hearing the comment could certainly still take offense. I tend to give folks, in the absence of other corroborating actions or statements, the benefit of the doubt.
3. Seems like as a society there are probably much more obvious examples of racism that we could be addressing.
By the way, my wife is a teacher here in Houston. She has taught in schools with high minority populations, high poverty rates, and in schools with low minority populations/lower population rates.
I have heard her, and many of her fellow teachers, both minority and white teachers, use the term "hood" to refer to the the area that their school is in, and that the student body they teach lives in. The high minority schools where she taught were mainly Hispanic, not black.
For Fred Flintlock; This isn't worth turning in. It's a gotcha that won't buy you a cup of coffee.
This is a social structure thing that may not reflect what the same individuals would do in a different context. So it makes perfect sense that the reference is about a social unit (the hood) rather than about the individuals who live there.
In contrast, upper class people are assumed to have faith in public institutions (which serve their interests, after all) and to cooperate with authorities. I take the officer's remark as an invitation for the senator to defend his upper class credentials by being cooperative. The "hood" reference is vague and lets people read in whatever they want as to who those non-upper class (and therefore uncooperative) people might be, but it doesn't need to be any more specific in this context.
The VC professors don't encounter lower-class white young persons. They see the advantaged whites, the advantaged and economically disadvantaged blacks (through merit and a.a.), but the working and lower-class white culture is something the academics are clueless about. Not on tv or in the movies like the black and immigrant underclass, and not intruding into their daily lives.
They don't see it, so it's not there.
Sad really.