I wrote the other day in my other blog, Tiquicia, about an incident involving a tica periodista (female Costa Rican news reporter) who had an incident with the police during a U2 concert in Florida. In the post I recalled what I felt was an analogous incident involving my ex-girlfriend with the Immigration authorities in Charlotte, North Carolina. Low and behold, it seems that someone associated with the incident (on the cop’s side), read the post and sent me a YouTube video describing their side of the story. I am not buying it. However, I did not mean to disparage police officers throughout the land, as anyone who ever says anything critical of the police in the U.S. is always quickly accused of. I did mean to disparage what I view as a mindset of hostility in the U.S. towards immigrants these days. Well, in this case, the lady was just visiting the U.S. It is a very rare case that Costa Ricans will actually leave the beauty and tranquility of their home country to go somewhere else to live, especially if that somewhere is the U.S.A. This mindset of hostility is apparent each time Bill O’Reilly sneers about some incident involving an “illegal.” They have no rights….not as U.S. citizens….not even as humans….is the “drift” one gets from his effluence. Who can forget his almost violent reaction when debating with Geraldo Rivera about an incident involving drunk driving by an illegal (Click to see Video). This attitude is a bit ironic when you consider that the U.S.A. is nothing more than a nation of immigrants. The only ones that truly belong there are the Indians who have been sequestered to reservations and treated as less than second-class citizens. I guess when I read the story about the tica getting what I considered overly rough treatment at the hands of the police at the U2 concert, I had what one might call a “knee-jerk” reaction. However, not having all the facts at my disposal I guess I ran the risk of actually being a “jerk.” Maybe the lady was drunk out of her mind (attending the concert with her ten year old son, which would be way out of line for an educated Costa Rican lady). Maybe she did act aggressively towards the police officer (again, way out of line for any Costa Rican, let alone an educated Costa Rican lady attending a concert with her ten year old son). Maybe the police action had nothing to do with attitude and had everything to do with attending to their task of crowd control. But it is in my right to question that, just as is Bruno Stagno, Costa Rica’s Foreign Relations Minister. He also doesn’t buy the cops’ story. Of course the police must have adequate leeway to attend to their very difficult and dangerous jobs. But when prejudicial attitudes appear to creep in, after all they too are only human, the rest of us have a right, even a duty, to question their actions.

Link to YouTube video referred to above….

Tags: Bill O'Reilly, Bruno Stagno, Geraldo Rivera, Giannina Segnini

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