I can imagine how the faculty and staff at Colorado State are feeling about this PR disaster. The cops pulled two native American students out of a tour group because someone else in the group phoned in a complaint.
Police body camera footage and telephone recordings captured an incident in which two Native American teenagers were pulled from a Colorado college tour and questioned after another tour member reported “odd” behavior by “creepy kids.”
The accusation: “people were worried because you were real quiet”. Quiet. That’s a crime now? They behaved politely and didn’t cause any trouble…clearly a case for cops.
I blame the racist woman who called this in, but I also blame the police: they should have asked her what they were doing, and when she said they were “real quiet”, they should have said that that’s not a problem, and if you’re going to call up the cops with such bullshit complaints, she’s the one who ought to be pulled out of the tour group and questioned. But no, they take two quiet young men aside and frisk them and ask for proof that they’re actually invited members of the tour.
The CSU president has published a statement about the incident.
Two young men, through no fault of their own, wound up frightened and humiliated because another campus visitor was concerned about their clothes and overall demeanor, which appears to have simply been shyness. The very idea that someone – anyone – might “look” like they don’t belong on a CSU Admissions tour is anathema. People of all races, gender identities, orientations, cultures, religions, heritages, and appearances belong here. As long as you want to earn a great education surrounded by people with the same goal who come from every part of our state, our country, and our world, then you belong here. And if you’re uncomfortable with a diverse and inclusive academic environment, then you probably have a better fit elsewhere.
It would be unfair to penalize the child of the woman who made the baseless complaint, but I hope she at least feels unwelcome at CSU.
We are, in fact, in a battle with hate within our communities. While much of what we have been speaking about is born of ignorance, we can educate against ignorance. The hate that is in the hearts of white supremacists as they attempt to frighten and isolate people across this country is not ignorance. It’s a malignant choice. The increase in racist and anti-Semitic symbols and language and demonstrations across America’s college campuses has been well-documented. We at CSU have simply chosen to deal with these issues in a more open manner, and that comes at a potential reputational cost to CSU for being public when such things occur. But history has shown us that hate grows in the face of silence. Hate is not made uncomfortable. Hate does not shrink from fear. What affects hate is our willingness to shine a bright and unwavering light on it and to face it and confront it.
There is no place for hate at Colorado State University, and we will not be silent when we see it.
Now…chew out the cops, too. Don’t accept the excuse that they were just doing their jobs, because part of their job should be recognizing when exercising pointless authority causes more trouble than it solves.
Man, I’m always quiet. I would be in so much trouble if I weren’t white. This is what we call white privilege. Now if only more people would realize that.
@Duth Same, here. Though I had the downside of having undiagnosed Asperger’s. And in my days, a lot of people stereotyped quiet and socially distant as potential school shooters.
@2 Bronze Dog: Oh, me too, apparently. Go figure??
Kudos to the CSU for their statement.
And you’re right about the cops. Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me, and also sadly, they’ll probably get away with it.
Quiet white young men don’t get noticed until after they’ve murdered schoolchildren.
Yeah… weren’t these kids from NEW Mexico? And they were asked where they were from, and whoever asked presumed they meant MEXICO?
First of all, is it against the law for Mexicans to be interested in this school and on a tour? And second of all, I do live in New Mexico and it is ASTONISHING how many people don’t realize that it’s in the United States of America. Or tragic, however you want to view it. But what it comes down to is pure and simple racism. If white kids had been doing the exact same thing, no one would have said a word. Being told that I speak “perfect English” once people know I’m from New Mexico… WTF, America. You are not getting your money’s worth out of school, that is for sure.
My wife is Egyptian, and a Christian at that. Over the years she’s been mistaken for Native American, Arab and even Mexican. When we travel by air, there’s almost always some issue with TSA, and she’s pulled over for additional bag inspection. We’ve come to expect it, but I’m telling you all that every day I’m dreaming of moving to British Columbia. I truly hate this country.
Speaking as someone who went to CSU – I’m not particularly surprised about any of this. Fort Collins (the town CSU is in) is incredibly white, with a fairly large section of the latinx minority (by far the second largest group) grouped together in a set of neighborhoods suspiciously close to a ghetto. On top of that the police here are proven to be thuggish, with campus PD in particular being infamous for throwing around petty authority every chance they get, while also having a track record of excessive force. See:
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/01/randy-klasmer-fort-collins-viral-video/
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-fort-collins-sit-lie-proposal-outrageous-cruel-and-absurd
This is without getting into campus PD’s interns, who aren’t even police officers and are yet given clearance to act like them – less thoroughly documented, but still seen here (that’s the college newspaper, and while it’s a bit of a rag at times this particular article is accurate):
https://collegian.com/2014/11/csu-attorneys-letter-of-protest-resignation/
Oh, and one more thing – before CSU gets too much credit for their statement, there’s an excerpt of note from a Denver Post article* that should be taken into consideration. Namely, this gem: “The incident on Monday has prompted a review by the university. CSU officials say campus police responded appropriately to the concerns of the parent, but they also reached out to the two men who only wanted to visit the campus to see if they wanted to enroll at CSU.” This is about as far from chewing out the cops as it is possible to get.
*https://www.denverpost.com/2018/05/02/colorado-state-university-native-americans-pulled-off-tour/
@ 6 Kestrel
New Mexico is in the United States of America.
Do you think we are that gullible?
Next thing you are going to tell us that Puerto Rico is part of the USA.
The woman who made the call should have been arrested for wasting police time and banned for life from the campus – because bigots should be shunned.
kestrel, seeing as you live in New Mexico, you may be familiar with New Mexico Magazine. I used to love reading this feature (when they say “more than two decades”, I guess they’re referring to the website version; it must be 60 years or more since I read it in the printed magazine—no, I never lived there, but somehow copies found there way to Ohio).
@10, jrkrideau — Next thing you are going to tell us you aren’t one of the gullibles.
And can’t bother to read carefully before reacting.
Kestrel points out some Americans don’t realize New Mexico is in the US. I have witnessed this myself on numerous occasions.
Seems to me that it had to been more then some racist lady
Out to harass these two collage students! American Indians
Are common in Colorado, so it wasn’t like some racist women
Surprised by seeing American Indians and decided to hassle
Them. Which by the way is a good way to get arrested for filing
A false report.
Their has to be more to this story , without implying the women
Or two students were a fault.
Typical article and most commentators were not objective
And blamed the women of racism. Since as we all know , if
Your a minority and addressed by whitey, its whiteys FAULT.
Funny , that really only objective comment was by a white
Racialist. That’s typical……
Robert Matthews, #14
That’s the worst poem I’ve ever read.
Oh my fucking god this makes me so furious. Really cops?! Just pull people out, question them and search without probably cause?!! Fuck you!! I have nothing to add just needed to vent. Grrrrrrr.
I wonder if the woman who called it in is maybe not as bad as she has been portrayed. “She also repeatedly told the dispatcher that her concern could be “completely paranoid” and apologized “if it’s nothing.” “They’re probably fine and just creepy kids,” she said.
We are told that if we see something we should say something. And there has been a history in this country with young men, who are sometimes quiet, and wearing all black clothes as these were who committed mass murder. Also the shirt with the word decapitation on it could give someone the creeps. With the long string of mass murders in this country, perhaps it’s better to err on the side of safety rather than not. Remember she said her concern could be “completely paranoid”. She was creeped out. What should she have done? What would you do if you were creeped out and worried about Someone hurting someone? Is there a right answer here? I know this group is very quick to accuse people of being racist, etc. better to call it in and be wrong that not and be right. Easy to make the call after the fact.
@17
I think she was creeped but I also think she was racist for being creeped. I really can’t see any reason to be creeped. I mean they were just two teen-aged boys joining a tour.
I can’t blame the police dispatcher for responding. They pretty much have to, don’t they?
But I do think it’d be nice if police had a way of responding to “I’m probably over-reacting calls” in a less heavy handed and disconcerting ways. These cops didn’t seem to have it in for the boys and wanted to run them in but … jeez.. are they not aware how jarring and disconcerting and even traumatizing it is to be singled out, asked to check your pockets and id and be grilled about you intentions while having no idea about the cause. This is *not* the default comfortable state “you have nothing to worry about if you didn’t do anything” that innocent people (which the police should almost certainly have thought these boys were) want to live.
Surely, it could have be done differently… observe the tour from a distance, talk with the tour leader first and then everybody, explain there was a call and that it was probably nothing *before* asking the boys for their ids and frisking their pockets, *not* bother with asking for id and checking pockets but just “You’re potential students?; that’s nice” etc. Most important of which is, of course, evaluating the circumstances (minor) and responding accordingly (minimally).
I mean the case is “two boys joined late and I’m being paranoid” was the *entirety* of the situation. It requires response but nothing more than a .. “*shrug*… things seem fine; we’ll just be back here and then we’ll be on our way”.
I can’t blame the mother of the boys for being upset.
@18. Hard not to agree with everything you said but I wonder if in any of the mass murder cases there was someone who suspected something but kept quiet. And if the police observe from afar rather than check it out right get away might that lead to bad consequences. How do you decide. Which way doe you err when the stakes are so high?
hotspurphd,
I wish we had the stats on how many white teenagers get the cops called on them for being quiet and weird.
There maybe a problem here, but it is difficult to pin down exactly what the problem is by just looking at that video and reading the linked report.
But I don’t think this article helps. It is difficult to justify the headline “So now Native Americans are “creepy kids””. The article says that the woman who reported them “believed they were Hispanic”. So, it’s hard to justify the “Native Americans” in the title. Also it’s one incident. You should not generalise from the presumed attitude of one woman towards two people (even if she did think they were Native Americans) to “now Native Americans are “creepy kids””.
And it isn’t clear that she was reacting to them because she thought they were Hispanic.But it is clear that, if it was, it was not the only reason. She mentions more than six reasons for her concerns, so I’m not sure why the fact that they are Native Americans (or Hispanics) was singled out. And she repeatedly tells the operator that she could be “completely paranoid” and apologised “if it’s nothing”. And she didn’t just say they were “creepy kids”, she said they’re “probably fine and just creepy kids”.
It is also difficult to find too much fault with those police officers. Presumably they were sent out because of a report of concern by a member of the public. They could hardly ignore that report, especially as the public is being repeatedly asked to be on the lookout and report suspicious behaviour (the advisability of asking the public to do so may be questionable, of course, but that doesn’t concern us here). They seemed polite and, as soon as they were satisfied this was a non-issue, they released them – all within five minutes. They even seemed apologetic when they said “yeah show us and we can finish this” or words to that effect.
I think we need to avoid inflaming situations beyond what is reasonable from the known facts of the case. I think this article failed in that regard and, as such, is counterproductive to the cause of promoting equality. That is only my opinion of course.
Well, I pretty much did, once.
All over the interwebs there are images of the two young men who were hassled by the cops.
Why don’t we see images of the woman who made this frivolous complaint?
“Quiet white young men don’t get noticed until after they’ve murdered schoolchildren.” Saad above is sadly correct imo.
Ummmm Spanish natives are natives I hate to inform you.
i’m just…i’m trying to figure out what kind of criminals join *college campus tours* to…do crime things. like, i did a lot of campus tours. it’s not as though they show you where the hidden college vault of gold bars is, or give you all the combos to the rich kids’ bike locks. and they tend to have a lot of participants. “witnesses”, in another kind of jargon. like, who is casing random families on college tours? i just…continue to be amazed by the pervasiveness of the narrative that tells comfortable white folks that POC are a threat no matter what, where, how old, anything.
Saad @5:
thanks for the laugh. the horrified, regretted laugh. oooof.
margecullen,
Fair enough. It may be a cultural thing. Here, “America” is simply a shortening of “United States of America”. Otherwise we would use the terms “North America”, “South America”, or “The Americas” for both North and South America. If the “American” in “Native American” has a broader application than just the native population of the USA, I retract that part of my criticism.
PZ’s sabbatical is going to be interesting, here.
hotspurphd,
You asked, “What should she have done?”
I’d say she could have been friendly and talked to the kids: “Hi! I see you’ve gotten here a bit late. My name’s X. Can I fill you in on what’s been happening?” It’s remarkable what actually getting to know a person can do to reduce one’s fear of them, or (rarely) provide information telling one that calling the police would be wise.. She acted without information that was easily available to her, and hurt those two boys and their family by doing so.
Wait. I just realised something…
The Mommys go along on the Campus Tour?
srsly?
Fledanow,
You seem to have information not contained in that video and the linked article. Are you able to provide a link to where you found this additional information?
Yep, Wasting everybody’s time.
It’s obvious they didn’t satisfy the white lady’s demands to justify their presence (in other reports you can read that she questioned them and oh shit, they didn’t want to talk to her), so she was OK with risking that they might be shot because a white lady called the cops on brown kids insinuating that there might be a school shooting.
fledanow, the unidentified racist woman did speak to these brothers. She badgered them with questions, didn’t like their answers* or that they nervously laughed when she wouldn’t let up, and then called them liars and said they made her feel “sick.” There is taped audio and an abridged transcript of the 911 phone call for anyone else who is playing dumb. The only revelation there is that there were multiple, hand-wringing idjit parents who made these young people feel unwelcome at an event specially designed to cater to prospective students first and their families second.
The obsession all adults involved had with where these teenagers put their hands (in their pockets!!1!) leads me to believe this could have ended in two deaths. It’s always a bad sign when people outside of law enforcement start voluntarily using the same jargon and stock excuses police use after having murdered some unarmed person. “Waistband” is one of them. The dehumanizing “male” for “man [we regard as guilty before being proved innocent]” is another one.
*nobody is obliged to give perfect strangers their life story and busybodies are not entitled to the truth
I’m just disappointed to find out that there is a nationwide media conspiracy to hide all the calls going out to police from well-meaning white moms about scary white boys. It must be a full time job covering up all those reports since there are so many more white boys in the country than any other ethnicity.
A hidden assumption in this statement is that all American Indians look alike (or, perhaps, that any two American Indians look more like each other, and more like “Mexicans”, than an American Indian looks like a “White American”). The Gray brothers are Mohawks and spent their childhood in New York State before moving to New Mexico with their mother about 10 years ago.
@25, margecullen,
If they’re “Spanish,” they’re by definition not native of any part of the Americas.
I honestly couldn’t care less that Murcans now use the word for anyone coming from any background that could loosely be described as “Spanish-speaking,” it erases the identities of both people from the myriad cultures of Latin America, but of Spaniards as well.
It’s annoying as hell to be continually reduced to an undifferentiated mass.
Here is a link to an article with the transcript (the site wants you to take a survey to get access to their online paper): https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/05/04/transcript-call-colorado-state-university-police-regarding-native-american-tour-members/582637002/
This part is especially enlightening for me(in regards to the woman’s attitudes):
“They’re not, definitely not a part of the tour. And their behavior is just really odd, and I’ve never called, ever, about anybody, but they joined our tour. They won’t give their names and when I asked them what they were wanting to study, like everything they’re saying isn’t … they were lying the whole time. And they’re just wearing like very … they just really stand out. … Like their clothing has dark stuff on it, like dark things.”
Yeah lady, they are wearing band shirts and dark hoodies, and have long hair! They couldn’t possibly want to go to college! She should see some of my friends kids, the tats alone would send her screaming, probably the blue and purple hair would too…
billyjoe,
I’m sorry to have misled you. I don’t have any more info than anyone else. I just meant that by talking with the boys, she could have found the answers to all her questions. It’s by actually talking with a person in an open and friendly way, not in a suspicious and interrogating manner, and getting to know them that we find out if there is anything to fear. Most of the time, we find out that they are just ordinary. Her fear and suspicion of people who looked different led her to misread their shyness for malice, and I bet she approached them in an unfriendly way, making them even less likely to want to talk with her.
As a non-American, it seems to me that many (most?) Americans approach anyone different with fear. Fear seems endemic to your country.
@snuffcurry,
Sorry, but why should we spend a bunch of time digging up more information? Lazy? Yes, but people are responding specifically to PZs opinion on the provided material. If PZs position is not reasonable based on the information he provides, than it is reasonable to criticize him, if it is reasonable and his source of information is incomplete and other information shows that his position is wrong, then provide that other information so he can be corrected. I like to believe that he will change his position based on new information. There is little to no reason to search for more information unless the sources provided seem suspect.
embraceyourinnercrone,
That’s exactly what I’m talking about! She says they were lying; how on earth does she know that? It’s very hard to know when someone is lying. Professional interrogators have a hard time with this.
How about telling them how cool there hair looks and asking them to tell her about their shirts? This is not hard. If you want to know about a person, ask them about themselves. The boys chose their hair and clothes to make a statement so admire the hair and clothes and ask them to tell you about them. All she had to do is want to know rather than want to have her prejudices confirmed.
paxoll, #39
Oh, fuck off with your continuous defense of racism and misogyny.
PZ called a woman who racially profiled a couple of young men a racist. Take your thinly veiled attempts at appearing objective and skeptical and shove it.
@Robert Mathews 14
You pretend to care about objectivity yet your post is nothing but your subjective feelings on the matter. You do nothing but feel about things you refer to, even a supposed “objective comment” is represented by nothing but your feelings about it.
Put up or shut up. You fail at your own standards which makes you deserving of contempt. As far as I’m concerned until you put up you just feel uncomfortable about racists being called out on their racism.
@Saad, I said absolutely nothing about the fucken content of the post, take your ignorant, strawman, dishonestly bias stick out of your fucken ass. As posted in #31
@paxoll
I see no straw man.
@Brony
, in which case feel free to apply the post #43 to yourself as well.
Speak for yourself. “People” don’t respond only to PZ’s writings, with the intent to criticize them. There is a story here about actual events in the world beyond this blog. That is also what people may be concerned with, because such people care about what happened to those involved in said events. That’s one perfectly good reason why they should do it, so it wouldn’t just be laziness that would stop you from having a reason to do so as well.
You could simply not give a shit about these people and only have a grudge against PZ, so you only want to pick nits about anything he says … or you could not have that mindset and have some other one. Do we agree about how that works, paxoll?
@paxoll
As long as we’re clear that you are still unwilling or unable to stand behind your words. I guess they have no real meaning to you. When dealing with creationists it was standard practice to show the straw man, not just label something a straw man and expect people to just accept it because you said so.
@consciousness,
did I say this? No. EVEN by the quote you used, so, please join the others with your bullshit strawman. I agree 100% with PZ about this story, and I never said anything criticizing him. I was speaking about someone being an asshole by calling people “dumb” because they were simply going off of the provided material. What I said was
So in this specific case I fall under the “if it is reasonable” position.
You should revise your understanding of the term “strawman” by thinking a bit about how logical and rhetorical implications work.
What assumptions were implicit in your question and the associated commentary? That’s something. But I didn’t need to give you that. I gave you an answer to your question about why someone should spend a bunch of time digging up more information.
People can care about what that information is, for reasons that are quite independent of the ones you offered. Obviously. Why you didn’t offer anything better than what you did is not my concern. Nor do I care much whether you wanted or expected one. It’s just a question, with an answer, and that’s that. Strawmanning you would look like something else.
What you mean is that you fall under the “it is reasonable” position. That’s a coherent position to have, unlike an antecedent without a consequent.
@40 fledanow
“How about telling them how cool there hair looks and asking them to tell her about their shirts? This is not hard”
Really? Tell them how cool their hair looks? That is hilarious.
chigau@30 asks “The Mommys go along on the Campus Tour? srsly?” If “campus tours” were a thing 54 years ago, when I was applying to colleges, I certainly never heard of them, and I never went on one—the entire process was done by mail.[1] 45 years later, when I started my first faculty job, they may have been a thing, but I never ran into them (or vice versa). However, 32 years ago, when I began work at the Small Private Research University from which I eventually retired (none too soon), I began to see them, and they already had parents alongside the kids at that time. I suspect the SPRU was more typical of American colleges than my earlier jobs. And I have no doubt that parents go along everywhere these days. Srsly, indeed.
[1] Near the end of the process, a couple of places did have me meet with local alumni; and what raging assholes they were. Luckily (I guess) I didn’t let the assholicity of the one who interviewed me for where I eventually went keep me from going there (and in fact it was probably salutary to see what kind of horrible people it was proud of producing…luckily once I got there as a student, I met a lot of the other kind of people, so I survived and, in my way, thrived).
@consciousness
The overwhelming problem here is people infer all sorts of implications that do not exist. They then state these patently false inferences as the persons position which is the definition of strawmanning. These are unabashed examples
or
, I have no significant disagreement with your “answer” to the question I posed, except it was done with very implied criticism to the foundational strawman you started with such things like
As I said previously
Now what is implied in this passage is that if there is as you say
then they would have the “other information” or want to go out and get “other information”.
hotspurphd,
You said, “Tell them how cool their hair looks? That is hilarious.”
I do it all the time. I’m an old white woman. I work and live in an area with a high population of aboriginal, black, and immigrant people. And by commenting positively on their style, hair, tattoos, shoes, or whatever I can that shows I am seeing them as individuals, I wind up hearing a lot of their stories. Sure, I suppose some of them laugh at me. But most don’t. And if perhaps you are laughing at my choice of words, I tend to say things like, “Your hair looks great,” or “That’s a beautiful/interesting tattoo”. I leave the door open for them to respond. And I don’t try to use their slang. If I use the slang of my youth, what of it? Nobody’s ever sniggered when I’ve said they look cool. Until now.
snuffcurry,
She didn’t talk to them, she talked at them. Se assumed they were bad guys and went looking for reasons to support her fear. I agree she is racist and an idiot and dangerous and she won’t stop until she learns to see and listen.
I was responding to the question about what else she could have done. What she could have done was approach those boys as people, not dangerous others. I’m not saying it was likely that a racist would do this, but it’s a better alternative than what was offered.
hotspurphd,
You said, “Tell them how cool their hair looks? That is hilarious.”
I do it all the time. I’m an old white woman. I work and live in an area with a high population of aboriginal, black, and immigrant people. And by commenting positively on their style, hair, tattoos, shoes, or whatever I can that shows I am seeing them as individuals, I wind up hearing a lot of their stories. Sure, I suppose some of them laugh at me. But most don’t. And if perhaps you are laughing at my choice of words, I tend to say things like, “Your hair looks great,” or “That’s a beautiful/interesting tattoo”. I leave the door open for them to respond. And I don’t try to use their slang. If I use the slang of my youth, what of it? Nobody’s ever sniggered when I’ve said they look cool. Until now.
hotspurphd,
You said, “Tell them how cool their hair looks? That is hilarious.”
I do it all the time. I’m an old white woman. I work and live in an area with a high population of aboriginal, black, and immigrant people. And by commenting positively on their style, hair, tattoos, shoes, or whatever I can that shows I am seeing them as individuals, I wind up hearing a lot of their stories. Sure, I suppose some of them laugh at me. But most don’t. And if perhaps you are laughing at my choice of words, I tend to say things like, “Your hair looks great,” or “That’s a beautiful/interesting tattoo”. I leave the door open for them to respond. And I don’t try to use their slang. If I use the slang of my youth, what of it? Nobody’s ever sniggered when I’ve said they look cool. Until now.
Fledanow,
Thanks, I get your point and I agree.
I am personally familiar with a couple of incidents where a simple straight forward approach could have defused situations and avoided them blowing way out of control. I was just wondering if there was information that indicated she hadn’t done those things, but I see others have linked to transcripts.
hotspurphd,
You said, “Tell them how cool their hair looks? That is hilarious.”
I do it all the time. I’m an old white woman. I work and live in an area with a large population of aboriginal, black, and immigrant people. Like me, pretty well everybody is poor. By commenting positively on a person’s style, hair, tattoos, shoes, whatever, I wind up hearing a lot of their stories. Sure, I suppose some of them laugh at me. But most don’t. And if perhaps you are laughing at my choice of words, I tend to say things like, “Your hair looks great,” or “That’s a beautiful/interesting tattoo”, rather than that they look cool. But I might say something looks cool at some point.. I leave the door open for them to respond. And if I use the slang of my youth, what of it? Nobody’s ever sniggered when I’ve said they look cool. Until now.
And this is why Sam Harris is dead wrong about the usefulness of tacial profiling.
hotspurphd @50.
Hmmm. Responding to a new person with snark and ridicule. How’s that work out for you?
pour moi
about 60 years
and counting