Black stars harassed by...Mounties?

[Dominus Atheos]

What's this all aboot?

A Detroit rap impresario suing Canadian customs officials for undue harassment at the border says the government is "begging for more than they expect" when his case comes to court.

Jerome Almon, 41, filed a $900 million lawsuit against several high-ranking customs and immigration officials, as well as 45 individual customs agents, alleging that he's been "repeatedly subjected to unwarranted, protracted and highly punitive detentions" since 1992.

Almon, the founder and CEO of Detroit rap label Murdercap Records, claims he has been singled out for persecution not just because he's black, but because of his association with the hip-hop industry. And he says he has the "absolute" evidence to prove his claims in court.

"It's as simple as this: I don't believe I should allow someone else to go through what I've been through," Almon said yesterday. Besides detailing his own experiences at the border – plus allegations of racist slurs and false accusations of having a criminal record by Windsor customs agents – Almon's court documents cite instances where Canadian officials have mobilized against American musicians, including Wilson Pickett, DMX and 50 Cent.

DMX cancelled shows in Calgary and Saskatoon in 2002 after being denied entry into Canada, despite having shot a movie in Toronto weeks before. And although he failed, a Toronto MP spearheaded a very public campaign to keep 50 Cent from touring Canada in late 2005, weeks after the rapper wrapped a movie shoot in Toronto.

"If 50 Cent or DMX come into Toronto to shoot movies, the red carpet is rolled out to get the $50 million," said Almon. "But in 30 days in DMX's case, six weeks in 50 Cent's case, they're the worst criminals on the planet ..."

Almon, a former U.S. fundraiser for the Caribana Festival, does extensive recording in Toronto, has had two serious girlfriends here, has registered his company in Canada and reckons "about half the people I work with are Canadian." Thus, he says, his constant run-ins with Customs have severely curtailed his ability to run Murdercap Records properly.

Local hip-hop promoter and Sony/BMG Canada head honcho Jonathan Ramos says that Almon might have a point about rap artists and the border. In recent years, he's been forced to cancel shows by Dead Prez, The Roots, Ghostface Killah, Nas and Common, among others, due to troubles with customs and immigration officials. The main problem, he says, is the lack of consistency that arises when individual border guards are left to make decisions as to who enters the country.

"Our border people have a terrible reputation internationally. Entertainers, anyway, consider Canada harder to get into than any country in the world," said Ramos, although he concedes, "it's gotten better. The profile of the average border guard has changed radically. There are now people of colour and females, when before it used to be, from my experience, a 45-year-old white guy who lived somewhere along the border. So whenever they saw anybody, some indie-rock dude with grimy hair who climbed out of a van, immediately they were, like: `Drugs.' Now we sometimes get people who say: `Hey, man, could I have your autograph.'"

Derek Mellon, spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency, declined comment on the case but said officers "don't discriminate according to race or nationality or religion."

[Aaron]

Mounties are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, our Federal police agency not the Border Services Agency which is what this article is about.

[aerius]

Gee, when hip-hop dickwads have a history of being assholes and bringing drugs and shit across the border with their entourages, we're going to give them some extra attention. We're going to flag them and send'em into secondary every single time, just like we do with everyone else who pulls this shit. Go cry to someone who gives a fuck.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Gee, when hip-hop dickwads have a history of being assholes and bringing drugs and shit across the border with their entourages, we're going to give them some extra attention. We're going to flag them and send'em into secondary every single time, just like we do with everyone else who pulls this shit. Go cry to someone who gives a fuck.

Over here there is a bit of controversy over more black kids being randomly searched on the street than any other ethnicity simply because they are statistically more likely to be packing heat or drugs.

[Darth Wong]

Don't be too quick to dismiss this. I've had plenty of run-ins with inbred border crossing guards myself. Our border towns are redneck towns, and a lot of the employees are local. I've been stopped, my car has been searched, etc. without a shred of justification. There was a period there when I was stopped every single time I went across for about six times in a row. I actually asked the guy why I was being singled out, and he mumbled something about gut instinct.

Funny thing; many of my white friends and coworkers, quite a few of whom actually used drugs unlike me, went across all the time without being stopped. Some of them bragged about how they routinely came across with carloads of merchandise and didn't declare any of it.

Frankly, I think the Customs guards should be kept under covert video surveillance and periodically monitored for racist discrimination.

[aerius]

I won't argue that profiling and bullshit goes on in Customs & border crossings, I can tell you for a fact that if you're a brown guy you've got a much higher chance of getting stopped and sent in to secondary. But the fact is a lot of the hip-hop & rap guys (no I can't name names) have a flag in their files which says "send directly to secondary" because they have a prior history of bringing in things which they shouldn't. They've been nailed in the past so they've been singled out for future searches.

[Spyder]

Don't be too quick to dismiss this. I've had plenty of run-ins with inbred border crossing guards myself. Our border towns are redneck towns, and a lot of the employees are local.

Is there a correlation between average intellect and distance from ocean/large bodies of water?

[Metatwaddle]

Don't be too quick to dismiss this. I've had plenty of run-ins with inbred border crossing guards myself. Our border towns are redneck towns, and a lot of the employees are local.

Is there a correlation between average intellect and distance from ocean/large bodies of water?

No empirical evidence here, but I could see a correlation going something like this: Cities are most likely to be built along coasts and waterways, as ports and such. Plus, the coast is the first thing you get to when you run across a new place such as the Europeans discovering the Americas, so coastal cities are the first ones to spring up. An established, thriving metropolis is more likely to become a center of learning than some new town where people are trying to live off the land to survive, so people in cities will have an easier time getting an education than ones in rural areas. And of course there's an obvious correlation between education and intellect.

[Big Orange]

The more socially and cuturally backward cultures in Europe and Asia are often land locked (Austria was more politically/religiously reactionary in comparison to Germany which had access to the sea, most of the Russian peasantry was arsebackward in the middle of the steppes, Lebanon was/is slightly more forward thinking than the majority of the more inland Arabs etc). So Discombobulated does have a point.

[Raesene]

The more socially and cuturally backward cultures in Europe and Asia are often land locked (Austria was more politically/religiously reactionary in comparison to Germany which had access to the sea, most of the Russian peasantry was arsebackward in the middle of the steppes, Lebanon was/is slightly more forward thinking than the majority of the more inland Arabs etc). So Discombobulated does have a point.

I would not call Prussian Germany politically advanced during/before the German Empire .
The trend will be more along urbanization than landlocked or not, a farmer somewhere in England would most likely be as reactonary as his contemporary in Austria (and probably still is), while the city-dwellers of both countries will have more in common than with their farming countrymen.

[Big Orange]

I would not call Prussian Germany politically advanced during/before the German Empire .

In context of comparatively, I would say Prussian Germany was less sociopathically reactionary than Bavaria or Austria (90% of the old guard Nazis came from those landlocked areas and were more rustic folk).

But psychopaths, arsebags and bigots can come from anywhere.

The trend will be more along urbanization than landlocked or not, a farmer somewhere in England would most likely be as reactonary as his contemporary in Austria (and probably still is),

On the world's eighth largest island, still landlocked.

while the city-dwellers of both countries will have more in common than with their farming countrymen.

Yes, because of the rapid transport and communication between the urban areas in recent millennia.

[LaCroix]

Austria was more politically/religiously reactionary in comparison to Germany which had access to the sea,

I would recheck my sources on Austria and landlocked, if I were you.

Prior the worldwars, Austria was one of the largest Countries of Europe, and a mayor political player in all affairs.

It had coastline in Parts of the mediterranean that now belong to Italy and the Yugoslavian successor states. It also had oversea colonies, Mexico to name one.

Definately NOT more or less landlocked as Prussia for most of the history.

[Raesene]

I would not call Prussian Germany politically advanced during/before the German Empire .

In context of comparatively, I would say Prussian Germany was less sociopathically reactionary than Bavaria or Austria (90% of the old guard Nazis came from those landlocked areas and were more rustic folk).

But psychopaths, arsebags and bigots can come from anywhere.

I do not remember where Goebbels, Goering, Heydrich, etc came from, but in my opinion the dominance of of Bavarians is more due to the history of the NSDAP, especially its 'Alte Kämpfer' - they knew each other since the beginning and later took dominant positions for themelves. As you said, psychopaths etc. can come from everywhere

The trend will be more along urbanization than landlocked or not, a farmer somewhere in England would most likely be as reactonary as his contemporary in Austria (and probably still is),

On the world's eighth largest island, still landlocked.

Probably shoud have compared fishermen to farmers - more along exposure to other ideas, if the only thing you see is just the sea or the next hill, and your life is routine, most people will not tend to become openminded.

while the city-dwellers of both countries will have more in common than with their farming countrymen.

Yes, because of the rapid transport and communication between the urban areas in recent millennia.

Because you would find more people with time available for education and therefore less manual labor intensive jobs in a city.
Tradition is more important in the country, try to be accepted in a village and then try the same in a city.

It also had oversea colonies, Mexico to name one.

I would not consider Mexico an Austrian colony, its occupators (and support for Emperor Maximilian) were French, Franz Joseph forced his brother to foreswear all claims to the Austrian throne before he could leave for Mexico (IIRC).

Anf the coastal regions of the Empire were a backwater most of the time.

[LaCroix]

I just answered to the false claim that austria was landlocked and therefore "backwater" in comparison to prussia/germany.
Thank you for that info on the "mexican episode".

[RThurmont]

The more socially and cuturally backward cultures in Europe and Asia are often land locked (Austria was more politically/religiously reactionary in comparison to Germany which had access to the sea, most of the Russian peasantry was arsebackward in the middle of the steppes, Lebanon was/is slightly more forward thinking than the majority of the more inland Arabs etc). So Discombobulated does have a point.

That's the most retarded thing I've read in some time. To make your argument work, we should just disregard the numerous Austrian composers, scientists, artists and other visionary thinkers of the past 300 years, since they came from a land locked country and are therefore completely insignificant. Likewise, we should ignore the relative lack of social progress or of any meaningful accomplishments stemming from Montenegro and Albania over the same period of time, since they had oceanfront real estate and were therefore culturally superior. See the problem with your line of thinking?

[Darth Wong]

Actually, you don't prove or disprove a correlation by looking at specific examples.

[Big Orange]

That's the most retarded thing I've read in some time. To make your argument work, we should just disregard the numerous Austrian composers, scientists, artists and other visionary thinkers of the past 300 years, since they came from a land locked country and are therefore completely insignificant.

This is associated with the Austrian cities and not the rural countryside (reactionaries like Hitler from his Austrian backwater village despised Vienna and saw it as a Jewish den). And these great composers, scientists, artists and visionary thinkers were in the minority in comparison to the other 95% of the population. But yes, I could be retarded in my opionon (and I'm often am).

Likewise, we should ignore the relative lack of social progress or of any meaningful accomplishments stemming from Montenegro and Albania over the same period of time, since they had oceanfront real estate and were therefore culturally superior. See the problem with your line of thinking?

Well Montenegro and Albania were essentially Austrian holdings, back in the day, so could be seen as the same culture. But coastal towns and villages could be as isolated as any isolated community in the inland mountains and plains.

[Raesene]

That's the most retarded thing I've read in some time. To make your argument work, we should just disregard the numerous Austrian composers, scientists, artists and other visionary thinkers of the past 300 years, since they came from a land locked country and are therefore completely insignificant.

This is associated with the Austrian cities and not the rural countryside (reactionaries like Hitler from his Austrian backwater village despised Vienna and saw it as a Jewish den). And these great composers, scientists, artists and visionary thinkers were in the minority in comparison to the other 95% of the population. But yes, I could be retarded in my opionon (and I'm often am).

And composers, scientists artists and visionaries are the majority in coastal or rural areas of other countries ?
What we consider art and science is mostly the product of cities because only there you have the resources and time available.

Likewise, we should ignore the relative lack of social progress or of any meaningful accomplishments stemming from Montenegro and Albania over the same period of time, since they had oceanfront real estate and were therefore culturally superior. See the problem with your line of thinking?

Well Montenegro and Albania were essentially Austrian holdings, back in the day, so could be seen as the same culture. But coastal towns and villages could be as isolated as any isolated community in the inland mountains and plains.

er, no... Montenegro was an independent kingom, allied with Serbia (?, at least during WW I), and Albania was also independent or Italian. You were thinking about Bosnia-Herzegowina, which was annexed by Austria-Hungary.
It's not geography alone, it's the connection to other cultures. Isolationism does not enhance a culture, it only leads to stagnation.