As ever Ethan has given me much to mull over; even if not intentionally.

There is an important question, "What is our path to social acceptance? And what role do societal criminal stereotypes play? And when is it OK to publicly discuss car-jackers within your community? ( Or any other violent criminal element? )

I have no f*ckin' clue what the future looks like for us because we aren't accepted.

I can only posit that the future to acceptance will follow the same path it has for so many other minorities who suffered slurs about their "criminal propensities."

The baseline is what we experience, the vicious slurs, the conflation with a criminal element, and a general distrust that the police wouldn't mistreat us, plant evidence &tc.

Many others have faced similar persecution and still have lingering stereotypes. At one point the only reason the cops would enter Chinatown was if a white person was imperiled. All heathen Chinee ran opium dens, white slavery rings and were members of Tongs. Ironically, this attitude meant that with virtual abandonment by the cops except to persecute, they had no alternatives BUT the Tongs for self policing.

Gays are predatory. All Hispanics are in some street gang with the 13 tag. And so it goes.

How did they confront the bigots who believe that rape is an expression of Gayness and that Drive-Bys are a south of the border cultural expression?

They didn't.

The political leaders, who pioneered the acceptable face of their communities; the Harvey Milk's, the Cesar Chavez's the MLKs organized, protested, marched and suffered. But they didn't treat the association between criminality and race or orientation as relevant. And MLK understood that in being asked to be judged by the content of his character he couldn't promote the associations falsely held about a propensity for crime as an element of his character.

The first stage is almost antiseptically unreal in what it allows in its public image. Asexual gays, and assiduous attempts by Black leaders to publicly avoid any ebonics they might speak at home. And part of that is a refusal to see the criminal as a member of a Pride community.

It isn't until after acceptance is real and sincere on the part of the former enemy that community outreach is possible in either direction.

Once trust is built it is possible for liaisons to help the community to root out criminal elements who exist within, even when they accidentally conform to a rejected stereotype.

It is usually even later, when many of the police within a community are FROM that community that they can even begin to ask, how might gay predators vary from others, or are there any factors within Latino culture that Latino gangs exploit differently from Russian gangs. But those kinds of questions require almost total acceptance and trust.

And trust can easily be demolished by a reversion to bigotry and to criminal stereotyping.

After 9/11 massive amounts of useful intel came from the strong relationship between Muslim communities like that in Dearborn and the LEAs. And they believed Bush's argument that this was about terrorists and not about Islam. Slowly police intrusion, spying and strongarm tactics on immigration papers which tried to coerce innocent Muslims into becoming agents provocateur undid decades of progress.

But the only way back is to remind folks that a terrorist is a terrorist before he is Irish, Arab or White. Once people fully accept that Muslim Pride doesn't conceal a criminal can the trust be rebuilt and the criminals weeded out.

( There are differences between suicide bombers [ like many Jihadists ] and those who plant bombs and depart [ like the IRA.] But the profiles hold stronger for the activity than for the irrelevant demographic aspects. If a White Supremacist is planning a bombing it matters more to know whether he plans to go out with a bang or plant and run than it does to know which whether he's Scottish American or German American. )

Of course the reason that bigots profile by demographic is that there is no community which, if surveilled 100%, won't produce crime. If you surveil only Muslim Americans and ignore White Supremacists you turn a blind eye to the most common source of public terrorism in America.

The stereotype dictates where the bigot will look, not the activity or the prevention of it. But perceptions can be changed. They just go from a complete public rejection of the stereotype by the community, to acceptance of the community, to a willingness to work in self-policing criminals who happen to share some demographic similarities with the community.

Those who try to do it in reverse are undoing the first steps towards progress.

Dante