Peter Watts assaulted by border guards, and some epistomology

[nancylebov]

Peter Watts, a Canadian science fiction author, was beaten, thrown out into the cold without transportation or coat, and charged with felony assault.

What he did was to get out of his car and ask (twice!) why his car was being searched-- he was on his way back into Canada, and he was dealing with American border guards.

Contributions to his legal defense fund can be sent here.

papersky explains that living in a free country means not being afraid of arbitrary attack from the police.

pecuniam on why letting governments get away with torture is a disaster.

comodorified on the emotional meaning of throwing someone out, unprotected, into deadly cold. And an update on why Watts survived this-- he was dropped off on the Canadian side, not far from Canadian Customs.

Digby on why having police that you need to treat like thugs is a bad thing.

In the comments to the various posts about what happened, there are some who say "I've crossed the border any number of times and nothing went wrong, so I'm not believing that this was an arbitrary abuse of authority." I've recently read The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb-- the premise is that people wildly underestimate how often unusual events with large consequences happen.

It isn't nonsense to assume that your experience has something to do with how things usually are, but it needs to be tempered with information from other people, and a check for asymetries. Does it make sense that only the low status people behave badly?

Comments

[fengi.livejournal.com]

"I've crossed the border any number of times and nothing went wrong, so I'm not believing that this was an arbitrary abuse of authority." When I read things like that, one of the subtexts I see is "Being white, the daily experience of people at the other border - and in my own country - is essentially invisible to me."

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

This may be unfair of me, but be careful of smugness. A lot of work has been done lately on getting the word out about racism, but who knows what most of us still aren't noticing? And it won't necessarily be about prejudice-- we're probably leaving out whole major categories.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

What's smug about pointing the racial dynamic in what people believe about the cops? I'm not saying it's the only one, but it's a big one.

If someone doubts arbitrary abuse of authority is possible, despite ample evidence to the contrary, it may be because the evidence of the problem involves minorities. That Americans border guards can be randomly capricious is something Muslims have said for years (http://www.worldrevolution.org/article/1830) and it's no surprise that abuse, left unchecked, expands to include anyone.

I'm not sure what you mean by "but who knows what most of us still aren't noticing?" If by "most of us" one means "whites" I'd say including people of color in "us" and paying attention to what they point out greatly expands what one notices.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

What seemed smug to me (and I realize I might be overreacting) was the implication that ignorance is culpable.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing the smugness -- cops treat any number of oppressed people, including People of Color exactly the way Watts got treated and worse every single day with nary a comment. If we don't note that the biggest reason the Watts case isn't getting ignored is that he has a number of privileges -- race, class, and fame among them -- working for him, we perpetuate that structure.

Likewise, the statement fengi quotes and comments on is an incredibly privileged statement and deserves to be identified as such.

[avram]

It's more likely "being well-off" than "being white". One thing that's turned up in discussion is that Watts was driving a rented car, and border goons apparently hassle drivers of rental cars a lot. If you can afford to own your own car, you'll get less trouble at the border.

[madfilkentist]

From Peter Watts' picture, he appears to be white.

This is in no way a racial issue. It's one of the state vs. the individual. There are people who will side with the state because it makes them feel safer, or because they think that authority must always be right, or for any number of reasons. Some do so because they haven't looked beyond their personal experiences. This means they can't learn from the experience of others.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure fengi's point was that if you find it hard to believe that border guards or police can believe badly without provocation, then you've only been listening to white people.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Yes, but "I can dismiss your viewpoint because you're white, or because you associate with white people; I don't need to present evidence or reasoned arguments" doesn't strike me as framing the matter in a good way. In the first place, because it suggests that there is no rational argument, and no appeal to universal ethical principles of justice or liberty, that could support opposition to abusive behavior—that the people supporting Watts have no stronger argument than ad hominem attacks on white people. And in the second place, because it encourages thinking in ingroup/outgroup terms, which naturally leads to supporting your ingroup out of blind loyalty even if they've done outrageous things. My natural assumption is that authority is likely to be abused, but when I read such comments I feel an involuntary twinge of "White people are being attacked, I'm a white person, I'd better side with the other white people." And I don't think that's a desirable reaction in this or any context.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Yes, but "I can dismiss your viewpoint because you're white, or because you associate with white people; I don't need to present evidence or reasoned arguments" doesn't strike me as framing the matter in a good way.

Good thing no one's said that.

In the first place, because it suggests that there is no rational argument, and no appeal to universal ethical principles of justice or liberty, that could support opposition to abusive behavior—that the people supporting Watts have no stronger argument than ad hominem attacks on white people.

Good thing no one's made any ad homenim attacks on white people. The issue isn't that there's something wrong with objecting to Watts' treatment, the issue is that so many people who are suddenly outraged about Watts' treatment have been conspicously silent in objecting to the fact that there the only remarkable thing about his treatment is that it happened to a famous white guy. If there's a universal ethical principle of justice and liberty here, then the question is where are all these people every day when these very same border guards are trampling the very same principal, only the victims don't happen to be famous and white?

And that's a legitimate question.

My natural assumption is that authority is likely to be abused, but when I read such comments I feel an involuntary twinge of "White people are being attacked, I'm a white person, I'd better side with the other white people.

That's something worth sitting with and examining. It's not much of a reason to object to people pointing out that there's white privilege in play here.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I think that you are wrong about there being no ad hominem.

The statement I was responding to said "I've crossed the border any number of times and nothing went wrong, so I'm not believing that this was an arbitrary abuse of authority." When I read things like that, one of the subtexts I see is "Being white, the daily experience of people at the other border - and in my own country - is essentially invisible to me." That responds to the statement "I've crossed the border any number of times and nothing went wrong, so I'm not believing that this was an arbitrary abuse of authority" by attributing white ethnicity to the people who make it (not necessarily accurately), and then by suggesting that because those people are white, their conclusion cannot be valid. In other words, it discredits an argument by attacking the source.

That's not to say that the argument itself is sound. It's not. For a start, it represents generalizing from an insufficient and uncontrolled sample; as the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. I could add other reasons for rejecting its conclusion. But I think the reasons it's wrong need to be thought through and spelled out.

I'd also note that all your other points about "Why aren't you objecting when poor people, or nonwhites, or the uneducated are treated equally abusively," while a legitimate question to ask of people who are eager to defend Watts, is utterly irrelevant when addressed to people who think that Watts must have done something wrong to have that sort of thing happen to him. Those people are not being inconsistent; they don't object if poor black people are abused, and they don't object if middle class white people who write books are abused—they back up the legal authorities right or wrong in either case. And the latter are the people that fengi was offering his proposed comment on. So you seem to be criticizing my position on an issue I didn't take a position on in the first place.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

i>That responds to the statement "I've crossed the border any number of times and nothing went wrong, so I'm not believing that this was an arbitrary abuse of authority" by attributing white ethnicity to the people who make it (not necessarily accurately), and then by suggesting that because those people are white, their conclusion cannot be valid. In other words, it discredits an argument by attacking the source.

That's not to say that the argument itself is sound. It's not. For a start, it represents generalizing from an insufficient and uncontrolled sample; as the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. I could add other reasons for rejecting its conclusion. But I think the reasons it's wrong need to be thought through and spelled out.

I believe you have confused discrediting the argument with discussing the etiology of the discredible argument, i.e. asserting that someone's conclusion cannot be valid because they are white with assertion that someone has come to an invalid conclusion because they are white. Being white in our culture really does mean that one has the privilege of not having to be aware of all the privileges one enjoys on a day to day basis, and it takes specific and significant effort to bypass that privilege.

Stating outright that white people have specific privileges that influence how we see the world is not an attack on us, it is an accurate description of how our society works.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The etiology of an argument is irrelevant if the argument is sound.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

If there's one point on which we agree, it's that the argument is not sound. Your yourself just identified the nature of the unsoundness thus:

That's not to say that the argument itself is sound. It's not. For a start, it represents generalizing from an insufficient and uncontrolled sample; as the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. I could add other reasons for rejecting its conclusion.

It is therefore useful to examine how people come to hold this unsound argument.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

From comments at Making Light:

And while I'm on the subject of Central and Eastern Europe, someone saying "but they must have done something" appears somewhere in every camp history or memoir that I have read. People, even people in notorious dictatorships, find it hard to believe that state authorities will beat or imprison folks for no reason. Someone, often many people, will always say, "but surely they must have done something to deserve it."

The thing is, it's worth examining people's reasons for their bad ideas, but if you really want to know what's in the back of their minds, I believe it's better to go in with an attitude of curiosity rather than assuming you know what's going on.

That particular belief might be a matter of simple privilege-- unjustified attacks by authority simply don't happen to them or to anyone in their social circle. It might be a desperate effort to maintain equanimity-- "I don't want to have to think about a scary, unjust world". It might be identification with unjust authority. It might be unconsidered agreement with people with any of the above motivations. Or it might be something I haven't thought of.

Nonetheless, I will indulge in a little mind-reading. One of the words I've seen used for such examination of beliefs is "interrogating" them. This doesn't suggest an honest effort to get at the truth.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

It might be a desperate effort to maintain equanimity-- "I don't want to have to think about a scary, unjust world". It might be identification with unjust authority. It might be unconsidered agreement with people with any of the above motivations. Or it might be something I haven't thought of.

The thing is, all of these things you list are examples of privilege.

Someone who has the option of pretending they live in an unscary, just world has privilege at the expense of someone who knows that if they try their hand at that pretense their death will follow shortly.

Someone who has the option of identifying with authority, just or otherwise, has privilege at the expense of someone who is systematically shut out of identifying with that authority.

And so on.

In Central and Eastern Europe, sometimes that privilege was and is given on the basis of race -- I include the present tense because of ongoing oppression of the Rom. Sometimes it was and is given on the basis of religion. Sometimes it's given on the basis of nationality. Sometimes on political affiliation.

But when one lives under a system in which privilege is given to some at the expense of others, there is no road that leads to "surely they must have done something to deserve it" instead of "oppression of the innocent happened today for the same reason it happened yesterday, and the same reason it will likely happen tomorrow" that doesn't pass through the reality of "I have privilege that shields me from the stark realization that there's systematic oppression going on."

It doesn't matter whether the person who arrives at "stmhdstdi" is conscious of that privilege. I fully expect that nearly every person who arrives at "stmdsthi" has no idea that they're inhabiting a privileged space. If I did, there'd be no need for posts that point at it and say "See that thing right there? That's privilege."

[fengi.livejournal.com]

"Some do so because they haven't looked beyond their personal experiences. This means they can't learn from the experience of others."

And why can't they learn from the experience of others? Could it be they think those others experience doesn't count for some reason? One of the reasons people think authority is always right is because evidence authority is wrong involves people who don't count for some reason. And once authority is granted this against one sort of individual it expands to include everyone.

I'm not saying racism is the only factor, but one can't say racism isn't part of why people allow abuse of power to go unchecked.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

There is, to be sure, an association between racism and authoritarianism. On the other hand, the concept of authoritarianism that makes racism central to it is at best tendentious.

Back in the late 1940s, there were a bunch of refugee German social scientists in the United States, largely of Jewish ancestry and largely of Marxist orientation, who became profoundly influential in psychology, sociology, and to a lesser degree the other social sciences. One of the major works to emerge from them was The Authoritarian Personality. And what is striking about this work is that it recognizes right wing authoritarianism, founded on religion, race, nationalism, militarism, and subordinating individual freedom of choice to a state that embraces these things; but it doesn't even hint at the possibility of left wing authoritarianism, founded on subordinating individual freedom of choice to a state that embraces egalitarianism, manageability by bureaucracies, and conformity to the group. And yet some of the biggest unchecked abuses of power have been the work of leftist regimes (hint: this was just a short time after a murderous war between a totalitarian right-wing regime and a totalitarian left-wing regime, to which the war in Western Europe was basically a sideshow).

Abuse of power can feed on any excuse for hatred. But the abuse is much the same. And it needs to be opposed whatever the excuse is. The fact that Watts is white and his mistreatment can't have been triggered by racism doesn't make it any less worthy of condemnation and opposition.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Afaik, totalitarian Communist states enforced ethnic/racial/religious bigotry, even if they were egalitarian in theory.

I'm willing to take your word for it that Altemeyer's defaults weren't as good as they should have been.

I'm not convinced people have yet developed a good theoretical and rhetorical framework for doing justice to both that authoritarianism will use any excuse and that racial and other prejudices cause serious blind spots.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the circumstances. Afaik, the Cambodian genocide by Pol Pot was within one race.

The abuse of power within families is almost always mono-racial, and is usually defended on grounds which aren't related to race.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

What happened to Watts is not a racial issue.

The fact that what happened to Watts happens to lots of People of Color every single day absolutely has to do with race.

The fact that what those People of Color to who join the very large pool of People of Color who suffer the very same abuse Watts did almost never get legal defense funds, letter writing campaigns and the rest absolutely has to do with race.

Those facts also absolutely have to do with class and fame, but those can't be separated from race either.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

He's white, but he's not from the US--which makes a difference.

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

Sample bias. There's a flavor of smug "I know this isn't the truth, but I'll say it anyways" to more than a few comments there.

My dad: "Well all the police I've dealt with have been very polite." Yes well, you've reported one burglary, nice sample.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'd like to take a look at The Black Swan one day.

Thanks for collecting all these in one place. It's a mind-boggling thing. It's scary how easily it happens.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The Black Swan is a good fast read, though quite scary. If people know so much less than think they do, it explains a lot.

I've heard that Fooled by Randomness is better, but I haven't read it yet.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

From what I can gather, he violated the unspoken rules that keep most of us from being beaten by our local cops - don't get out of the car unless the cop tells you, stay polite, do not show annoyance, do what the nice officer says - and if it looks like you're going to get injured anyway, scream your damn fool head off in the hopes someone's got their camcorder out.

And yes, I realize that these shouldn't have to exist, but as long as half of the people who apply for jobs as security and police want them because it makes them feel powerful, they will.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

If you don't find this "violation" somehow exculpatory of the border guards' treatment of him, I don't understand your point.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

My point is we shouldn't have to live that way, and it sucks that it takes someone from a neighboring country getting treated like this for a lot of people to notice.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, American police/border guards have been getting more violent. It's conceivable that they're just starting to see if they can get away with treating white people the way they've been treating everyone else, but that's still behaving worse on the average.

The thing is, the level of irrational violence from the police isn't a law of nature. It can be changed, and I hope it will.

And speaking of unspoken rules, it's standard in the UK for people to get out of their cars when stopped by the police so that the car can't be used as a weapon.

[lysystratae.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if they're getting worse or if more people are willing to talk about it; either way, people need to keep reporting it.

And thank you for the tip; never having driven in the UK, I hadn't looked into that sort of thing there.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I travel on a US passport and live in Canada. I cross the border on a regular basis, and nothing bad ever happens to me.

I have no illusions about why that is. It is because I am (visibly at least) white, female, attractive, charming, and I know how to behave like a seasoned traveller--that is to say, in such a way as to trigger the least resentment at my "defiance" while also making it clear that I am not going to put up with people's shit.

[landley.livejournal.com]

You also aren't driving a rental car, it seems like. At a guess, that triggers one of their profiling regexes and makes you a Suspect(tm), and once they've been triggered into that mode they stop being rational and start going according to a bureaucrat-automaton script, which includes intimidating the Suspect(tm) to achieve Compliance(tm), and never backing down because that would be losing control of the situation.

Racism is just _one_ form of profiling.