A racial incident in Milwaukee.

Involving a 100-year-old woman who was working as a Wal-Mart greeter and used the provocative epithet "you people."

"So where'm I goin' wrong there, Juan?" — a question from that nice man/monster, Bill O'Reilly.

The Juan Williams moment, prompted by Bill O'Reilly, who just a few days earlier, had this immensely more dramatic-looking moment on "The View":



I got to the Juan Williams video via Donald Sensing (via Instapundit). Sensing has old quotes from Jesse Jackson and Susan Estrich, who both conceded that black men make them anxious in some situations. Jackson's painful admission was that he feels "relieved" when he's walking down the street, hears someone behind him, and looks back and sees that they're white. Estrich said:

Every woman I know, black, white, green or yellow, gets a little bit nervous, if she’s being honest, when she sees an 18-25 year-old black guy dressed in gang attire, walking behind her on the street. I’m not afraid of old black men. I’m not afraid of old white men.

She purports to speak for all women, but limits the nervousness to encounters with "an 18-25 year-old black guy dressed in gang attire, walking behind her on the street." It's funny to see those 2 quotes together. Jackson describes the realistic situation of hearing someone behind you and looking back to see who it is. Estrich too has the person walking behind her, but somehow the nervousness is restricted to the young black man in gang clothes. Her political correctness made her layer in extra details, but if the guy is behind you, you don't see him yet. Were you not nervous just to have someone following you? The supposed revelation of feelings doesn't really add up, which makes the phrase "if she’s being honest" particularly telling.

Now, if Jackson and Estrich could say that, how was Williams different? Actually, there are a lot of differences. I won't try to list them all. But I don't assume that Jackson and Estrich got a free pass for saying what they said. And Williams has gotten a ton of support. It's not all about treating Muslims with more delicacy than black people receive. One thing about Williams is that he made himself available to Bill O'Reilly and gave him support and comfort. I think many people wanted to use that "View" fracas to demonize O'Reilly for good. And then Williams sat down on camera to shine a glow of humanity on the man the good people would have us see as monstrous. And so it became necessary to demonize Williams too.

“I wouldn’t want to show proof of citizenship, but I also don’t feel it is racial profiling."

"You are going to look different if you are an alien, and cops know."

Says an Arizonan named — to the NYT's delight? — Mr. White.

[The new Arizona law] gives the local police broad powers to check documentation “when practicable” of anyone they reasonably suspect is an illegal immigrant....

What will be seen as constituting reasonable suspicion? How will it be possible not to unfairly burden all the Hispanic citizens?

“This law might kick some of these immigrants out,” said Mr. Lowis, 76.... “They vandalize the golf course, throwing flags in the ponds. Burglaries. There are too many immigrants. I get tired of seeing all these people standing on the corner.”

Such sentiments propelled the bill through the Republican-controlled Legislature, with supporters listing well-publicized cases in which illegal immigrants committed rapes and shot and killed police officers....

The linked article is called "Growing Split in Arizona Over Immigration."

No Democrats in the Legislature supported the bill, and only one Republican voted against it.

While those opposed to the law are making the most noise....

No details in this article about that.

... the quiet support can be found here, though some people are uneasy about being cast as anti-Hispanic and several people interviewed declined to be named out of concern they would be thought of as prejudiced.

“I don’t want people to be afraid to come,” said Pam Sutherland, who is a window manufacturer and a fan of the crime sweeps but is also concerned about the state’s image. “I just want them to do it legally.”

For many, though, support for the law comes down to a way to vent frustration that, in their view, the federal government has not done enough to control immigration — particularly in a state on the border where reports of drug busts, houses overcrowded with illegal immigrants and people dying in the desert trying to get here fill the airwaves.

So where's the "growing split"? I don't get the headline, and I sense the NYT's frustration looking for evidence of anti-Hispanic attitudes. Where is the discord? It seems like ordinary people are struggling with a serious problem and the ethics of solving it. (The 2 political parties are, of course, acting in accordance with their perceived political interests.)

'''What is your name, sir?' the officer asked. 'Bob Dylan,' Dylan said."

"'OK, what are you doing here?' the officer asked. 'I'm on tour,' the singer replied.... The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer... said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show. The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan. The officers thanked him for his cooperation. 'He couldn't have been any nicer to them.'"

So that's real-life Bob. In songs, he's more...

They asked me my name
And I said, "Captain Kidd"
They believed me but
They wanted to know
What exactly that I did
I said for the Pope of Eruke
I was employed
They let me go right away
They were very paranoid

IN THE COMMENTS: Drew W said:

And yet Dylan didn't yell at the cops that he was being hassled only because he's a Jewish man in America.

AND: Actually, it looks like he was hassled because of his skin color:

He was strolling along a residential street in the Latin Quarter of the seaside town when police received a call reporting an “eccentric looking old man"....

Two patrol officers were dispatched to investigate and stopped Dylan...

Sergeant Craig Spencer from Long Branch police station said: "Residents called to complain there was an old scruffy man acting suspiciously.

"It was an odd request because it was mid-afternoon, but it’s an ethnic Latin area and the residents felt the man didn’t fit in. Lets just say he looked eccentric."

Racial profiling in NYC: "We looked for *white* people."

"That's all you really had to do. Cruise Broadway or Amsterdam Ave. or Riverside Drive in an unmarked car, spot the white guy driving the vehicle with the Jersey plate slow and deliberate, watch him park and shuffle to the sale location, watch him walk back to the vehicle with the pep in his step shortly thereafter and bingo. Most times you had a collar. That's what you were paying us for, wasn't it? The good people of Washington Heights have a right to live in a neighborhood free of cretins driving over the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan for the sole purpose of buying drugs, don't they? Is that not good police work? Of course it is."