The city of Farmington, New Mexico has a wide history of racism within its
community, specifically toward Native American individuals. Beginning in 1974, with the murder of three Navajo men by white teenagers, hate crimes and other race related incidents have been recurrent. More recent events include the beating of Navajo man Fran Blacky, the shooting of Navajo man Clint Jones, the beating of a 47 year old Navajo man by white teens, and other racially motivated beatings. In the most recent major Farmington hate crime, a 22 year old cognitively impaired Navajo man was branded by a hot swastika shaped wire hanger, had a swastika shaved onto the back of his head, had offensive words and phrases written on his back, and was then persuaded to record a cell phone video giving consent to the branding. The three white teenagers who committed this unthinkable hate crime worked at a local McDonald’s and came in contact with this man as a customer. These offenders could have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, and were the first in the country to be charged of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which was passed in October 2009.
community, specifically toward Native American individuals. Beginning in 1974, with the murder of three Navajo men by white teenagers, hate crimes and other race related incidents have been recurrent. More recent events include the beating of Navajo man Fran Blacky, the shooting of Navajo man Clint Jones, the beating of a 47 year old Navajo man by white teens, and other racially motivated beatings. In the most recent major Farmington hate crime, a 22 year old cognitively impaired Navajo man was branded by a hot swastika shaped wire hanger, had a swastika shaved onto the back of his head, had offensive words and phrases written on his back, and was then persuaded to record a cell phone video giving consent to the branding. The three white teenagers who committed this unthinkable hate crime worked at a local McDonald’s and came in contact with this man as a customer. These offenders could have been sentenced to up to 10 years in prison, and were the first in the country to be charged of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which was passed in October 2009.
However, in the eyes of different citizens, Farmington is or isn’t as dangerous of a community as these events make it appear. According to Navajo Tim Bates, the first words he is asked when pulled over by a local police officer are “Have you been drinking?" or "How much have you had?" "The color of your skin dictates the question the officer will ask…to them there is no such thing as a sober law-abiding Native American”, Bates told the Navajo Human Rights Commission during a 2008 inspection into racial issues in border towns. Farmington Police Chief Kyle Westall had a complete different view on the issue. "I think we had a total of two racial profiling complaints last year." Westall stated. "That's out of almost 70,000 calls, about 25,000 traffic citations and 7,000 arrests." To be precise, there were four racial profiling complaints to the Farmington Police Department in 2010, and none have yet to come in the year of 2011.
The city of Farmington is taking measures to eliminate this racial tension felt by its citizens. Farmington Mayor Roberts believes that “the city is being aggressive at creating an atmosphere in which people are welcomed and feel valued regardless of their ethnicity or racial background."The city government has worked to provide Farmington with a public library, parks, the Farmington Indian Center, and the Totah Behavioral Health Authority. "I think that the reason Farmington would be seen as having a high quality of life is because of the services provided by the city," Roberts stated. "Take parks for example, if you drive by Brookside on the weekend, it is highly populated and mostly by members of minority groups." I believe that despite its dark and violent past, the city authorities of Farmington are doing all they can to eliminate this racial profiling and hatred.
City authorities seem to think racial issues are now under control, but some citizens such as Navajo Tim Bates believe that is not the case. Do you think that the issue is under control? Or do you think that Farmington needs to work more toward peace in their community? Why?
I do not think that the city if Farmington is free of their racial issues. It has only been a couple years since some of the racist acts occurred and peoples mindsets don't just change like that. At least not that fast I believe it takes time to have an understanding for others if you have had hatred for them in the past. Farmington might have peace now but it doesn't mean it will stay permanent. As in Jeff's post the mayor of Farmington said "Take parks for example, if you drive by Brookside on the weekend, it is highly populated and mostly by members of minority groups." all this is doing is separating the minorities from everyone else. I do not think that having separation in a community is healthy because it isn't helping their problems it is just holding it off.
ReplyDeleteLike Troy, i also believe that the city of Farmington is not free of its racial problems. One reason of this is that the shortness of time from the hate crime committed by three white males until now is such a short period of time. And yes, statistically police said that hate crimes have decreased through the years but that doesn't mean that they are controllable. People over time in our world change their minds quickly and they decide they want to do something without thinking very often. With this in tact, hate crimes can appear like that, and cause once again hate crimes in Farmington or even anywhere.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Farmington has it under control for right now, based on Westall's data. There has only been a few race incidents out of about 100,000 a few years ago, and they haven't had any all this year. I don't think that that's a lot of complaints for a state to have. But I agree with Dylan and Troy, that the data is only based on a short span of time. It's only been a few years and I don't think that's enough time to accurately determine if the state is controlling the race issue. People can come up and commit hate crimes at any moment because there is good chance they are still living in the area. If the low number of complaints stays consistent for a few decades, then I think you could say they have it under control.
ReplyDeleteAlthough most people would like to believe that the racism is dead, in reality it is not. So many cases have been brought up towards native american racism. Everything from the article to Sherman Alexies writings have shown us that many people still harbor hatred to Indians. As fore the Farmington, the boys who committed the crime to the Indian should be put on trial and put in jail. Fro them to get away with such a unspeakable act of racism is not a option. The community needs to work to a peaceful solution with the Indians living in the area before we have more racist hate crimes occurring in that area. The native Americans have been through a lot according to the history we have been studying and the last thing that they need is to be discriminated against once more.
ReplyDeleteI think that racism will be prevalent no matter where it is. However, historically Farmington appears to have much more hate crimes than most places and perhaps the profiling that officials such as police have towards Native Americans is unethical (though cops profiling of offenders is often a popular topic in most places of America). Furthermore, extra protections should be made in Farmington to ensure that the Native Americans rights are protected. Also, it is disturbing that people in these times still use swastikas and the three white men that were caught were probably not the only members of this gang. Overall, I think there should be greater consequences for hate crimes in Farmington to ensure prevention.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if racism will be a problem forever. There are always stories about racist people. As for Farmington, he might have the situations better, but it would take a miracle to solve the ongoing conflict. In Farmington, I think there needs to be more severe punishments for people cause with hate crimes because what they were doing is not play, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI think they should try to stop the racism in Farmington because the situations that the town had been through is extreme. Nobody should have to go through the things the Native Americans went through in that town and there at least should be an effort to change the violence. I do not think there will be a change in the racism quickly but if there is not an effort for change it makes the town look very bad.
ReplyDeleteI think that the the racial issues have improved pretty drastically considering the data that there used to be many racial profiling complaints and in 2011, there have so far been none. However, this doesn't mean that racism has disappeared from the area. Although Farmington is on the right track to end these issues, I think they need to continue working toward peace in the community. As long as there are these racial issue, there will always be some tension and problems in the community. Therefore, if Farmington wants to end these problems, they need to target the racial problems.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Farmington's racial issues have improved from the past but still think there is a problem that is important to fix. Most peaceful communities with people who aren't racist don't have teenagers from their local McDonald's branding and shaving swastikas into innocent people's bodies. I agree with the mayor of Farmington when saying that the community is "aggressive". On the topic of this problem, I agree with Navajo Tim Bates because the racial problems need to come to an end in order for the city of Farmington, New Mexico to became a normal humane society
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Framington is free from their racial issues. They have been improving but based on this current even in particular it proves that they are no where near close to completely resolving the,. This should be a priority in the community of Framington is to keep everyone safe even if it means taking drastic measures. When someone in your community are being branded and shaved due to racist decisions, I think that everyone should be scared. In order for this violence to end, everyone in the Framington community needs to put an end to the racist comments. People need to learn how to keep their opinions to themselves because it can potentially cause someone their life in a town like Framington. I generally agree with Navajo Time Bates because he believes that the racist problems need to come to an end.
ReplyDeleteI think that racism is still a common commodity in America culture and chances are that it will never diminish. The cases in Farmington are just a few in many other racial hate crimes against Native Americans. Besides the inevitable I do believe that racial crimes should be kept more under control by the Farmington community. I thing that the community should take a stand against such actions to prevent this from happening again. Local police and judges should also intensify the consequences for perpetrating these sort of racial discrimination acts, for they undermine the Native American society and prohibit them from their constitutional rights. I agree with the Navajo Time Bates statement that racist problems need to come to an end in order for everybody to live in a peaceful humane society.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though, Farmington needs to work more towards peace in their neighborhood. I think that although Farmington received four racial profiling complaints in 2010 and have not yet received any in 2011, I believe that racial profiling is still an issue. In my opinion, the Navajo men and women could have given up on attempting to report racial profiling issues seeing as how the police also racially profile them and immediately ask the question of “Have you been drinking?” if they are being pulled over for something. I think that there is still a lot of racial tension in Farmington based on the color of people’s skin and their cultural background and they need to gain acceptance in their community.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the recent hate crime is enough evidence that there needs to be peace in Farmington. Like Cassandra, I think that there is a reason for the low number of complaints. Not everyone reports abuse by authority because they fear repercussions. There is clearly a portion of the community, however small, who hates Indians. If there can be crimes that horrible in a community, then ther must be a need for peace.
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