Commentary – Page 11 – Pat the Expat

Data, Numbers, & Hate

A few posts back, I promised to explore the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. First let me explain two challenges: one is the difference between data and numbers, and the other is the difficulty in determining intent behind an action.

First, I think we all know what numbers are, but how to distinguish them from data? Data are just numbers that have been processed in some way to make them useful in comparing or combining. A simple example: if I told you the temperature in Cincinnati today was 40° but only 20° in Ajijic, you might assume Ohio was warmer than Jalisco, and that would be wrong. Those are numbers, not data. The numbers are in different scales (Fahrenheit and Centigrade); placed in the same scale, they become data and we can compare.

Another example: I just saw a headline (later revised) that said “One hundred fully-vaccinated people in Washington State have gotten Covid” which sounds scary. However, those one-hundred victims came out of a pool of 1.2 million vaccinated people in Washington. With context, the story was that less than .01% of vaccinated people in Washington later got Covid, which is reassuring, not scary. Processing numbers into data is essential!

Second, actions are easier to assess than intent. If I walk past you and don’t greet you on the street, was I angry at you, preoccupied, inconsiderate, unaware, near-sighted or some combination of all of the above. You can easily assess the fact that I did not greet you, but the cause becomes a matter of great conjecture, and I myself may not be able to answer “why?”.

You may have seen the claims of a great increase in the number of anti-Asian (sometimes referred to as anti-Asian/Pacific Islander, hence AAPI) hate incidents. Activists and the media tie the phenomenon back to the Trump administration and his blaming China for the Coronavirus pandemic in 2019. Let’s dig into the numbers (hint). The first point to understand is that the FBI has not published its 2020 crime data, so there is no single, national, data-set for hate crimes. Here is the last FBI graph:

The data are low, and hit an all-time low in 2015 before starting a gradual rise. The FBI data is not comprehensive, as law enforcement elements participate voluntarily, but it does cover more than fifteen thousand organizations representing over three-hundred million Americans.

In the absence of 2020 FBI data, what numbers do we have? The numbers cited in most major media reporting come from StopAAPIHate. Here’s the pull quote from their website: “In response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020.” I’ll set aside the question of using data from a group which set out under the assumption of an “alarming escalation” and just show their results here:

There are several potential issues here. The numbers come from the sixteen largest US cities, so we have an urban skew to the data. The numbers are very small: eleven cities had incident totals in the single digits, and four reported no incidents in 2019, meaning the data could go nowhere but up. The overwhelming number (eighty-eight of one hundred twenty-two) of hate crimes happened in just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose.

StopAAPIHate has other issues. Among the numbers it uses to buttress its claim of increasing hate crimes are: Google Search terms, slurs on Twitter, and any claim that China is possibly responsible for the coronavirus. The last one would make much of the planet guilty of anti-Asian hate crimes, including most of Asia. StopAAPIHate does not acknowledge other explanations or causations (e.g., the non-representative nature of Twitter, or the use of Google search to explain unfamilar words).

It is interesting to note that overall hate crimes declined by seven per cent in 2020, while anti-Asian hate crimes rose by one-hundred forty-nine per cent. It is also relevant to note that anti-Asian hate crimes account for only seven per cent of all hate crimes, and the following groups had more reported victims of hate crimes in 2019: blacks, whites (!), Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Gays, and LBQT+. On top of that, there is the issue of attributing crimes based solely on the race of the victims. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) discovered a huge increase in anti-Semitic attacks back in 2017 when it included thousands of false, phone-bomb threats (to Jewish Community Centers and schools) conducted by an American-Israeli Jewish student. Still, the purported rise in anti-Asian hate crimes demands attention, even if the numbers are small both in absolute and relative terms. So let’s dig into the phenomenon further. We know who the victims are, but who are the perpetrators and what are the crimes?

According to the New York Times, the NYPD does have data about the identity of perpetrators in 2020. Of the 20 anti-Asian hate crimes in which arrests were made, eleven arrested were black, five were Hispanic, two were Black Hispanic, and two were white. This tracks with the FBI’s 2019 hate crimes data, and it tracks with anecdotal reporting of 2020 and 2021 incidents. And the Times has noted that so many of the perpetrators of these alleged hate crimes are either homeless, mentally ill, or both.

As to the crimes, the vast majority of hate crimes (against all victims) were verbal intimidation/simple assault (eighty percent) or vandalism (seventy-five percent). StopAAPIHate has added the category of “shunning/avoidance” which accounted for twenty percent of its reports.

I will spare my friends a long litany of specific events, categorized as hate crimes by activists and the media, which failed to be so upon further scrutiny. A large number are simple robberies or assaults where no evidence of hate, except for the ethnicity of the victim, was ever introduced. Some attacks do include language which supports a hateful intent, but when the perpetrator is mentally ill, can we rely on their words?

So are all these incidents wrong? No. The most famous ones do not stand up to scrutiny, but there was a trend towards slightly increasing anti-Asian hate incidents going back for four years. Is the trend overblown by activists and the media? Probably.

I have little doubt more people are making more hateful statements today than yesterday. One need only check social media to confirm it. The social fabric in the States is wearing thin, and people are increasingly escalating encounters. Those with whom you disagree are not just wrong, they’re evil, why, maybe even Nazis! If someone looks askance at you, they might be “dissin'” you, and you don’t have to put up with that in 2021, do you? Activists talk about “getting in people’s faces” and even small disagreements become political battlegrounds. The other day in the States, my dear wife made the mistake of asking a woman (at a public park) whether she had lost her face mask; the woman’s response assumed my wife was attacking her for not wearing one, when actually my wife had just found a mask, and the rest of that woman’s family was wearing masks, so she thought she was about to do a good deed. Not in this day and age.

Long ago, I was a daily runner, which meant I ended up running in places like aboard a ship in Kattegat, on the rolling plains of Kansas, in smoggy Budapest and uber-urban Tokyo. In three of those locations, the sight of a lanky, six foot-plus white guy running around merited just odd looks. It was only in the States where I had cars on rural roads cross the centerline toward me, strangers toss trash at me, or carloads of teenagers hang out the windows and swear at me. And that was back in the well-meaning twentieth century! So do I believe there is more hatred now? Sure.

Is there an epidemic of specifically anti-Asian hate? Probably not. And can the increase be tied to former President Trump? Only if you believe in a secretive cabal of New Yorkers, Californians, Blacks, Hispanics and even Asians waiting to follow his lead. No, there is something deeper going on here, and I promise to cover that in the near future.

Everything You Know is Wrong (VIII): The Crusades

Valparaiso University is a small Lutheran school in northern Indiana which recently decided to abandon its athletic team name, the Crusaders, because the term suggests “aggressive religious oppression and violence.” What’s your first reaction to the word “crusade?” What about the term “crusader?”

There have been a series of academic or popular works which have revised public perceptions of the Crusades. First and foremost was Stephen Runciman’s 1950s era, three-volume history of the Crusades. Terry Jones of Monty Python fame relied on this work for his BBC series “Crusades.” And no hall of shame would be complete without Ridley Scott’s execrable movie Kingdom of Heaven (2005). What do they all have in common? “Terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining” as one historian put it.

What is/was the misconception? The Crusades were a series of aggressive wars launched by a backward, religiously-fanatic West against a more peaceful, civilized East. Crusaders were a motley array of Kings in search of new domains, 2nd or 3rd sons of nobles (hence without title or prospects) seeking wealth, and peasants desperate enough to join, spurred on by fanatical clergy eager to make money off the endeavors. This toxic mix made Crusaders an intolerant, blood-thirsty, and rapacious force that broke the laws of war (as they were). Did I miss anything?

The funny thing is, the Crusades lasted 700 years (1095-1798), and happened at a time when common people, nobles, and the Church actually wrote about their lives and kept records. And little of what I described above comports with the historical record.

Let’s start with what was a “Crusade.” Like bowling, there were rules!

There were four rules for a crusade:

The Pope had to call for, or endorse, it.
Participants “took the cross,” an oath that they would not relent, or give up until the specific goal of the Crusade was achieved (and there was a specific goal). The Crusaders then sowed a red cross onto their clothes signifying their oath.
Crusaders were promised that the lands and families they left behind were under protection of the Church (not insignificant when lords were constantly prowling to poach each other’s lands). They were exempt from many tolls and charges en route, and could expect the hospitality of the Church and the faithful on the way.
Upon successful completion, crusaders were awarded an indulgence (a form of pardon for sins).

Why are these formal aspects of a crusade important? Various individuals or groups initiated their own crusades, or tried to tack alongside Crusader armies without “taking the cross.” These unauthorized crusades committed atrocities against Jewish communities, sacked towns, and robbed civilians. The Church criticized these efforts, suppressed them, and excommunicated those participating. Yet some historians started including these events in histories of the Crusades!

Were the Crusades aggressive or defensive? Islam had overrun the Holy Land by force in 637 Christian Era (CE). For the next four centuries, Islamic leaders permitted a steady stream of Christian pilgrims to visit the holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1009 CE, a Fatimid Caliph ordered the destruction of the Church and other Christian sites, which caused a great outcry in Christian Europe, although the Caliph’s son permitted its rebuilding in 1048 CE. When the Seljuk Turks captured the Holy Land, they commenced persecuting Christian communities, culminating in the slaughter of twelve-thousand defenseless pilgrims outside Jerusalem in 1065 CE. The Seljuks defeated the Orthodox Byzantines at Manzikert and pushed toward Constantinople, and in 1095 CE Pope Urban II called the First Crusade to secure a safe path across Asia Minor to the Holy Land, and to liberate Jerusalem. If not defensive, this Crusade certainly had just cause.

Were the Crusades authentically religious, or was that only a pretense for economic motives? This is one of the most scurrilous charges, one easily believed by moderns, and one overwhelmingly disproved by the records. Over the centuries, Westerners have gone from believing in fighting for religion, to not believing in fighting over religion, to not believing in religion, to not believing anyone could ever believe in fighting over religion. But the Crusades happened during the first of these belief systems.

Runciman et al promulgated the notion that the Crusades were for the extension of kingdoms and the wealth of 2nd and 3rd sons. The problems with these assertions are manifold. First, the historical records show the vast majority of nobles “taking the cross” were eldest sons, those who had the most to lose. Kings and nobles alike went bankrupt just in paying to get their crusader armies to the Holy Land, and this was not unexpected. The many wars of Medieval Europe usually ended with all sides in economic ruin, and at least there, there was a chance to occupy nearby territory. On top of this, armies generally lost more troops to disease than combat, and travel involved inevitable new disease encounters. The most likely outcome for any crusader–rich or poor– was known when they “took the cross”: death by sickness or the sword in a far off place. Of the 60,000 crusaders in the First Crusade, only 300 knights and 2,000 common men lived to occupy Jerusalem.

Why take such a vow? Faith, supplemented by the possibility of an indulgence. Whatever you think of the practice of indulgences, they are only compelling IF one believes in Heaven and Hell. Faith is the consistent refrain in the contemporaneous writings of noble and commoner alike. Could they have been posturing for history? Perhaps. Did some have mixed motives? Probably. But for the vast majority, the cause was simple.

Were the Crusaders uniquely violent? This charge sometimes relies on the actions of the faux crusades and crusaders I mentioned earlier. But the most glaring piece of evidence is the Crusaders’ behavior after they captured Jerusalem, killing everyone in the city until “the streets ran ankle-deep with blood” or the Temple mount ran with blood “up to the knees” as quoted by former President Clinton in a post 9-11 speech at Georgetown University. Historians have demonstrated the mathematical and geometric impossibility of this claim, traced the gradual exaggeration over decades as eyewitness accounts were embellished, and generally debunked them using Muslim sources.

The point remains: many people died after the Crusaders broke through the walls. But this was Medieval siege warfare. Cities were offered the chance to surrender and let inhabitants flee. This happened at Jerusalem. The remaining Muslims and Jews–who fought side-by-side–were considered combatants, and any who surrendered after the walls were breached were subject to summary execution or enslavement. This was the way of war for the Christians and the Muslims in those times: surrender at first, and live as you were with a new ruler. Surrender while besieged and live to suffer the spoils of war. Fight on until the walls are breached and die or be enslaved. While it seems barbaric, remember that the attackers generally suffered huge losses in the breach; the Crusader army at Jerusalem appears to have suffered about thirty percent casualties in the attack. It is unspeakable by modern standards, but was not unique at the time.

How did the First Crusade ever succeed? First and foremost, the Muslim world was rent at the time by a series of deaths which left the various factions at war with one another. Second, the Crusader armies were tough and resilient.The Crusaders spent four years marching from various locations in Europe to regroup in Byzantine territory and set off across modern-day Turkey. There they fought off numerous Seljuk armies, successfully laid siege to several port cities (establishing a sea-line of communication and supply), and ended up outside the walls of Jerusalem almost four years later. After capturing it, they withstood a countersiege by Fatimid armies before establishing the various small Crusader states in the Holy Land. Finally, the Crusaders had a huge advantage in that they were highly motivated by the goal of capturing Jerusalem, while the Muslim defenders were much less so.

Wait, how can that be? Isn’t Jerusalem one of Islam’s holiest sites? Well, yes and no. Jerusalem is not mentioned (by either its Hebrew or Arabic names) in the Qur’an. There is a mention of the Prophet Mohammed’s night journey to the “furthest mosque,” a title accorded to the al-Aqsa mosque on the Dome of the Rock (aka, the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. The problem with that is that when the Prophet would have journeyed there (610 CE), there was a Byzantine Christian church on the site, but no mosque. The claims of al Quds (Jerusalem) as the “furthest mosque” really began after Muslim armies captured Jerusalem in 638 CE. So while the city had some import, it wasn’t the same for Muslim defenders and Crusader besiegers.

What led to the none-too-subtle shading of Crusades history? Salah al-din (a Kurd, by the way) famously emasculated the Crusader presence in the Holy Land in 1187 CE, and Islamic histories treated the period as a minor footnote, likening the Crusader presence to a temporary event of little significance. Likewise, Christian Europe lauded the individual crusaders but eventually came to see the overall enterprise as a failure. The Crusades became a historical trivia item, both East and West.

During the post World War II movement toward decolonization, however, activist academics cited the existing European colonies as modern-day Crusader states, and Arab nationalists grabbed hold of the claim, using it to bolster the cause of self-determination. The Crusades became a lens for arguing modern discontents, well beyond the historical record. Modern secular academics had a perfect foil in the Crusades: violent Catholic religious fanatics bent on subjugation against a peaceful, more enlightened Muslim opponent, who eventually prevailed.

So, the Crusaders certainly share a unique spot in military history. Are the Crusades something worth celebrating, or not? That is certainly a point for debate, but one that should be informed by the actual record, not a Monty Python skit version of history.

Bring on the Vaccine Passports

Disclaimer: as an expat and a frequent world traveler, I have a lot to gain by the institution of a globally-accepted vaccine passport system. That said, please allow me to explain why even a someone who has never left their hometown would also benefit from such a regimen.

We’re entering the Coronavirus Endgame, where we reverse-the-snap and bring life back to where it was in early 2019. Things will of course be different–they should be–but the weirdness, isolation, and fear will be gone. To extend the Marvel Avengers metaphor, the vaccines are like the first 45 minutes of Endgame, where our heroes find Thanos and kill him, only to realize nothing changes. The vaccine is not the snap; we have to figure out how to get back to normal.

Why is that? The virus isn’t going away; the current betting in the medical community is it will become endemic, like the cold and flu, always there waiting to make someone sick. Vaccines provide protection, but not perfect protection. Some people with weaker immune response will still get sick and be contagious. And we don’t know how long our immunity is good for: the clock is running, and people immunized in the early trials are still not getting sick, so we’re (just a swag here) probably good for a year, and counting. But it’s unlikely this immunity is forever, so we’ll need to keep practicing things we hated from 2020: masks and social distancing and fever checks and hand sanitizing and elbow-shakes and so forth.

So what good did vaccination do? Well, it greatly reduced the risk of getting sick/hospitalized/dying. And since there is less risk, governments may be willing to allow more mobility and fewer restrictions. The obvious implication is for international travel; right now, US citizens can travel to most of the Western Hemisphere and Africa, along with a few other locations. Likewise, few foreigners can come to the US. A viable vaccine passport could loosen those restrictions.

What about the complaint that a vaccine passport is another government restriction on our freedom? Well, it’s true, it is. In fact, it already is, and has been for almost ninety years. All governments reserve the right to refuse entry to sick people; the only difference is whether the governments are screening for illness (now they are). Many of us already have a vaccine passport: the World Health Organization (WHO) “yellow card” which was a necessary part of foreign travel for decades. If you traveled internationally back in the last millennium, or were in the US Armed Forces or Peace Corps, you have this form. So the concept is not new and not another restriction; it’s the same restriction that always was, you just either didn’t know about it, or forgot about it.

NaTHNaC - Polio vaccination certificate — The International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis ICVP): pretty old school!

Why not just use the WHO certificate? It is a yellow piece of paper with scribbling on it, from the quaint old days when faking it was considered unlikely (“You want to go to the Amazon without a Yellow Fever inoculation? Go right ahead, and who’s your next of kin?”). Using it today would invalidate the entire concept, since any damn fool with a color printer and Photoshop could make one up.

So we need something digital and secure and updatable and widely-accepted across the globe. This is why the US federal government should be leading the charge. I would like to know what President Biden is doing about this, as it falls squarely in an area where he should be leading, but I have heard nothing about it. Why should the airlines or the EU or Israel be the places to develop this concept?

What if you don’t travel, never had the WHO card, and really don’t care if I can traipse around the globe? Fair point! You too have much to gain. As medicine continues to learn what the risks are with respect to immunity, mutation, side-effects, boosters, and transmission rates, governments will become more comfortable in relaxing some rules based on vaccination. And this will require some readily acceptable, common way to prove it: a vaccine passport. Just like the immigration officer at the airport in London, your dentist, the checkout clerk, your waiter and the baby-sitter will want to know what risk they are entailing in being near you. Will this be forever? No, because eventually people won’t care. How do we know that? Because that’s what happened to the WHO yellow cards; they have never been rescinded, most people just forgot about them, although in a few cases they are still necessary for travel (Yellow Fever being a great example).

For all those folks who are sick-and-tired of masks, your vaccine passport will become a path out of that particular hell. Now, there is no reason the passports have to be mandatory. You can refuse to get the vaccine, and just wait for herd immunity and the end of restrictions. Or, you can get the vaccine and skip getting the passport: you’ll still face restrictions, but you’ll know you are relatively safe. Or you can get the shot and the passport and breathe easy. Choice is a good thing.

Vaccine passports can be an important tool in the transition back to normalcy, both for travel and day-to-day life. And the passport won’t be forever, as I already demonstrated. Sometime in the not too distant future, your passport app will just be a memento of how things were, just like an old face-mask you’ll find crumpled up in a coat pocket. Won’t that be a great day?

What Just Happened? Hate Crimes, Atlanta, & San Francisco

A few blog posts back, I mentioned that the problem with race-consciousness is eventually, when one adopts this worldview, you see racism everywhere. And here we are.

A few days back, a very troubled young man killed eight people in a shooting spree around Atlanta, Georgia. Of course you heard all about it; the only person who didn’t was my wife, who happened to be under dental anesthesia that day, but later had no recollection of the original event or our discussion (“What are you talking about?” was her initial response).

The news script went like this: the suspect was a twenty-one year old white man who was a “religious fanatic” and belonged to an “evangelic group.” He claimed to be a “sex addict” who attacked “massage parlors” to eliminate the “temptation” they presented to him, and he told authorities he was on his way to Florida to attack the “porn industry” when he was apprehended. Six of the eight people killed were women of Asian descent (ages thirty-three to seventy-four years old!) who worked at or owned the massage parlors. A police spokesman, when asked to explain the motivation for the killing spree the day after the attack, related that the suspect “denied having a racial motive,” and when further questioned, the spokesman ad-libbed that maybe the suspect had “a really bad day” which led to the spokesman’s reassignment from his duties. (The quotes above all come from news articles)

Those are the facts of the case as we know it. The media spin was to place this story as the crescendo of a series of anti-Asian hate crimes that began with the killing of eighty-four year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee in San Francisco in January. Media news and commentary opined that the suspect (I am intentionally avoiding using his name in accord with the idea that ignominy deserves no recognition) clearly committed a hate crime, equal parts misogynistic and racial. According to a running count by Andrew Sullivan, the New York Times ran (as of March 19th) nine stories along this line, while the Washington Post went for the gold with sixteen! Network news parroted the same line. A few went so far as to claim white male fetish-sizing of Asian women was the underlying cause, with a dollop of white supremacist violence on top. Those who mentioned the police spokesman did so with incredulity that anyone would be so stupid as to (1) believe what the suspect said his motive was and (2) could ever say anything as stupid as he had “a really bad day.” I saw at least two reports that the removed police spokesman had once tagged a racist meme on social media, calling Covid19 “the virus imported from CHY-na.”

Here’s the New York Times running highlight box

Now what is the rest of the story? It’s still early, but so far not one intrepid reporter has uncovered a single text, tweet, or social media post expressing anti-Asian or anti-woman views by the suspect. In private discussions with his friends (which a few reporters have interviewed), the suspect told them he went to Asian massage parlors not because of race, but because those parlors “were the safest place” to acquire casual sex for money. And he was a repeat customer at two (of the three) places he later attacked. The suspect had long complained of a sex addiction, and had gone to rehab more than once, yet he remained plagued by his inability to control his sexual impulses. His Baptist congregation and his parents were well aware of his continuing struggle. In fact, the night before the attack, the suspect’s parents threw him out of the house, perhaps prompting the police spokesman’s “very bad day” comment.

According to a Times’ story and video, the suspect spent an hour inside his car outside the first parlor, then spent another hour inside the facility before he started shooting. We’ll know eventually what happened before the killing began.

The media coverage of the victims has been of two minds. Some commentators decried the suggestion any of the victims were involved in the sex trade, as if that was attacking the victims. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms denied any evidence this was the case, but she was sadly mistaken, as the attacked massage parlors were previously targeted by law enforcement and were on the sex rating app RubMaps as locations for prostitution.

Some media noted the ages of the victims and stated this somehow suggested sex was not involved; a simple Google search would reveal a story from SupChina, an all-things-Chinese web service, entitled “Chinese moms in America’s illicit massage parlors” explaining the more than nine-thousand illicit massage parlors in the United States staffed and run by 35-55 year-old Chinese women. It’s an empathetic and personal story about women trying to make ends meet for their children, but it belies the notion that “Asian massage parlors as brothels” are somehow a fantasy imposed by others. The Times even ran an earlier March story (before the attack) confirming the size and illicit activities of these parlors, although that story highlighted the Asian organized crime ties of the industry.

The President and Vice President used a previously-scheduled Atlanta visit to mourn the deaths and decry anti-Asian racist violence, but where in the preceding facts is that racism? The claim seems to go all the way back to the first national case, in San Francisco in January.

Back then Vicha Ratanapakdee, an eighty-four year-old retiree of Thai descent, was taking his daily walk in the Anza Vista neighborhood of San Francisco. Perhaps you saw his story? The unprovoked attack was caught on video and is frankly, shocking. He was violently knocked off his feet and hit his head on a garage door. He died in the hospital days later. His assailant was a nineteen year-old black man named Antoine Watson. The media coverage inevitably cited a rising tide of anti-Asian violence and linked it to former President Trump’s “China virus” tweets, despite any evidence Mr. Watson is a MAGA man or how he was influenced by the President. The local police indicated repeatedly they had no evidence of a racist motive, which was criticized by local activists and ridiculed by the national media.

The apparent ridiculousness of the Trump-Watson connection got me interested, so I waded through tens of cut-and-paste national reports looking for better coverage in the local media. There I found this gem, hidden away by the barrage of the national media narrative:

Watson was “apparently vandalizing a car” when Ratanapakdee looked toward him and changed directions on his walk, (Assistant District Attorney) Connolly said in his detention motion, citing surveillance footage from the scene. The teenager then sprinted “full speed” at Ratanapakdee an instant after the elderly man looked back at him, according to the motion. Ratanapakdee was sent flying backward and landed onto the pavement. A witness told police they heard a voice yell “Why you lookin’ at me?” twice before hearing the apparent impact, prosecutors said. Sliman Nawabi, a deputy public defender representing Watson, disputed the perception that the attack was racially motivated.“There is absolutely zero evidence that Mr. Ratanapakdee’s ethnicity and age was a motivating factor in being assaulted,” Nawabi said. “This unfortunate assault has to do with a break in the mental health of a teenager. Any other narrative is false, misleading, and divisive.” Nawabi said Watson comes from a biracial family that includes Asians and had “no knowledge of Mr. Ratanapakdee’s race or vulnerabilities” since the elderly man was wearing a mask, hat, sweater and jeans.
Michael Barber in the San Francisco Examiner, February 8th, 2021

Oh, and Watson was with a woman named Malaysia Goo, who was at the scene of the attack, was arrested as an accomplice-after-the-fact, but was later released and not charged.

So we have a man of Black-Asian descent with an (possibly) Asian woman, vandalizing a car, seeing a man covered from head-to-toe looking at him. Then the suspect knocks the potential witness off his feet. These are points upon which both the District Attorney and the Public Defender agree. These are points not mentioned by national media piece. It would be easier to find Waldo in a sea of red hats than to find the racism in this story. Yet it remains exhibit #1 of anti-Asian hate.

Some may wonder about the data cited repeatedly showing an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in recent years. I’ve gone on long enough here, so I’ll save that part of the story for a future post. Suffice it to say there is the media narrative, there are numbers, and there is data, but all three don’t get along well together.

What’s the harm in jumping to conclusions about racism and hate crimes? First and foremost, every debunked or manufactured claim of racism undermines the many real cases of racist violence. Second, hate crimes involve proving a mindset, and any attempt to do so requires examining all the various relationships involved in the crime. It’s a major reason prosecutors don’t like to take hate crimes charges to court. If you want to prove the Georgia man hated Asian American women, you’re going to have to let the defense demonstrate all the ways he “spent time” with them, so to speak. Whose end does that serve? Third and finally, lost in all this nonsense about who-hates-whom-and-why is this simple fact: people were murdered. Which is a serious crime. Innocent people became victims and died at the hands of violent criminals. These are real crimes which call out for real justice, not hate crimes demanding social justice.

Mexican Expat Myths #5: You don’t need to learn Spanish

This little gem gets trotted out lakeside from time-to-time. Someone will ask on social media “do I have to learn Spanish before I retire to Lake Chapala” or “can I get by with buenas this-and-that?” A few starchy old male expats in t-shirts sitting on the terraza harrumph back with why one must speak Spanish or why it’s only polite or just “stay out of my country” (that last one is always a little confusing).

It is absolutely true that lakeside, like the tourist havens, has plenty of English-speaking local residents. And plenty of bilingual expats to help out. The tourist sites actually prefer you speak English, because they have gone to the trouble of hiring bilingual staff and the one thing they want is a great customer experience (and review), not one that recalls the time your high school Spanish failed you and the mesera almost slapped you when you asked her if she was embarazada after spilling your drink (look it up, if you must).

Lakeside has many English-language amenities: churches and newspapers and clubs and the Lake Chapala Society and restaurants and drivers and tour companies and body shops and a special mercado and lawyers and real estate agents and bars and nightclubs and delivery services and all of them cater to English-speaking (only) expats. So it’s easy to believe you’re in some part of borderland Texas, or California, or even Florida where you don’t really need to speak Spanish.

But it is limiting. You see, the English-speaking veneer at lakeside is just that: a thin covering. Drive a few miles outside it, and try your “can you understand me if I shout?” bilingualism and you’ll get smiles and stares. People will try to help you, if they can figure out what you want. And that’s ok. But if you wander into a real Mexican restaurant, they may not understand your pantomime for less-spicy salsa. If you go driving around the many cultural or historical sites of Mexico, you might not understand whether the attraction is closed for an hour or for the day. Your legal documents are in Spanish with an ingles translation, and only the español is authoritative. If the police stop you, or you need an ambulance away from home, well, you get the point. You can travel (with a guide). You can go shopping (with a bilingual friend). You can attend the government bureaucracy (with a fixer). But you’re limited by what you don’t know: Spanish.

Which is not to say there aren’t a sizable number of expats who know a few Spanish words (the polite ones) or none at all and they still enjoy the expat life lakeside. It limits your travel areas, your circle of friends, your lifestyle. But there is still plenty to experience here.

Final judgment: You don’t need to learn Spanish: this is a tough one. How best to nuance it? You don’t need to be polite, either, but wouldn’t you rather be?

Mexican Expat Myths #4: Mexicans never say no

Expat version of a Dad joke:

Expat (to Mexican amigo): “Do Mexicans ever say ‘no’?”

Mexican amigo: “¡No!”

Sorry for that, but it had to be said.

It’s a common observation among expats that Mexicans don’t like to say a flat “no.” They consider it a bit rude, and it leads to cultural friction with gringos who are more accustomed to direct language. It all goes back to the importance of being educado, which can mean either educated or well-mannered (the latter in this case). Ask a Mexican amigo if you’re invited to the party, and you’ll find yourself invited to the party–even if it was a family-only affair before. It’s just the polite thing to do.

In some instances, this avoidance of “no” leads to unusual outcomes. For instance, order a beer at a restaurant and if they find they are out of stock, they might not come back and tell you “no,” they might send someone down the street to the liquor store to buy that beer for you. In other cases, it’s just frustrating. We contacted a local smithy about a metal frame artwork we wanted done, and he told us yes he could do it, and then came out and took measurements. And then . . . crickets. No response, no estimate, nada. Maybe he was too busy, maybe it was too hard; we’ll never know, except we never heard “no.”

The one exception which proves the rule is Mexican bureaucracy, where “no” is a common response. As in “no, a color copy is not acceptable” or “no, you don’t have a full copy of your CFE bill including the pages that are nothing but advertising” or “no, the written amount on this check is hyphenated incorrectly.” The French may have invented bureaucracy (and remember, it was an improvement over previous forms of administration), but Mexico has made it its own. If bureaucracy was an Olympic sport, Mexico would always medal.

Sometimes “no” comes out as “yes.” Sometimes it comes out as a reluctant “yes.” Sometimes it comes out as “maybe later” or “maybe never.” But it rarely comes out as “no.” As an expat, you can get annoyed about it, just accept it, or embrace it as charmingly polite. But it won’t change.

Final judgment: Mexicans never say “no.” Mostly True.

America’s Race Problem

I seriously considered leaving this post empty. Just a title. An obscure existential point? Was it not really there? Was it a fragile white page? Would you infer what I was implying?

I also considered starting with a provocative quote, like:

But there is no neutrality in the racism struggle…One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is not in between safe space of ‘not racist.’ The claim of ‘not racist’ neutrality is a mask for racism.
Ibram X. Kendi, “How to be an Antiracist”

But such language is the jargon of the activist, leaving no room for discussion, no way to exchange ideas. It is the language of exclusion, not reason. So let us reason together.

Contra Kendi, does America have a race problem? If so, what is it? And then what must be done?

First it pays to define the problem (always, says the engineer-by-training). If we ask “does America have a race problem?” we necessarily imply something unique. If everybody everywhere has a race problem (and they do), and America’s is the same as everywhere else’s, well then, there is nothing American to discuss. We could talk about racism in general, and why people instinctively distrust those who look differently. Let’s accept that as a fact (people do distrust “the other”) and let’s look at what may be unique about America.

America prides itself as a nation of immigrants. America calls itself a nation committed not to a race or creed, but to an idea: freedom. France sent the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World as a gift to America, in recognition of those self-evident truths we hold so dear: “. . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable (sic) rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Yet America practiced slavery while enacting those words. It massacred Native Americans, abandoned freed slaves, derided Irish and Italian refugees, exploited Chinese laborers and imprisoned Japanese Americans. Certainly these facts alone make the case that America has a racism problem. Except every country and race has similar stories. The only unique thing here is the glaring discrepancy between actions and ideals.

To be uniquely American, the racism would need to have some distinct American characteristic. Not all these groups were immigrants, and other countries in the New World display similar discrimination between those who were here, those who came, and those who “mixed.” Mexico’s history is replete with struggles that can be directly tied back to Peninsulares (Spaniards born in España), Criollos (Spaniards born in Nueva España), Mestizos (of mixed race), and Ejidos (from the Mesoamerican peoples). Not all the groups subject to American racism were–to borrow an anachronism from today–people of color (although “Know Nothings,” the Proud Boys of their day, tried to paint the Irish and Italians as “white n-words”).

Run the tape of American history forward, and what do you find? The Irish and Italians consolidate and gain power. Latinos arrive in waves, either returning home with agricultural or economic seasons or assimilating as the second largest American ethnic minority group (although they are a disparate, heterogeneous group). Asian Americans are mirroring the patterns of the Latino population (and will eventually become the third largest ethnic group), only they are succeeding faster and in a more dramatic fashion. Elite academic institutions actively discriminate against various Asian Americans because–strictly relying on test scores–they would crowd out all other ethnic groups in the student body. Native Americans remain such a small contingent as to be statistical outliers: that they have not done well is obvious, but they’ve done better than some indigenous groups (try to find some Mexica, for example).

Which leaves African Americans. Their story, which we memorialize each February during African American History month, is unique in that they are the only such group brought to the land of freedom in chains. They are the only such group that had a governmental policy to free them (the Civil War and Reconstruction), yet they are also the only group abandoned by the same federal government (federal policy toward Native Americans never considered making them full members of American society, which was the initial goal of Reconstruction). These are historical facts.

These facts are often cited by the anti-racist, white fragility theories of Mr. Kendi and others. But do the facts support the theories and do the theories accurately describe the problem? If America is systematically racist to its core, why do millions of brown-skinned peoples quite literally march to the southern border begging to get in? They might have been excused for their ignorance once upon a time, but today, the internet has all the data they need. Why do thousands of Asians take a spot in administrative queues that may last years or decades? Why have three-quarters of the emigrants of Africa–since 1990–attempted to locate in America, where their black skin dooms them to second class status?

Something different, not systemic white racism, is going on here. If it was systemic and all-encompassing, a Jamaican-Indian couple would not have chosen to raise their daughter as “black” in 1960s Oakland, and we would not have our first black Vice President. Such a choice, and it was that by their own admission, would have been child abuse if it consigned her to a life of second-class status. In area after area where past practices of racism prohibited or limited African American participation, the elimination of those limits was followed by African American excellence: sports, music, media, law, medicine, politics and on and on.

Today, most African Americans are middle class or better. Most do not live in inner cities, but in suburbs and small cities. Most do not have a serious criminal record. They graduate high school at the same rate as the white majority. There are successful black-majority cities (Atlanta) and suburbs (Prince Georges county). There are black role models in every profession. What do these contra-indications mean? While in-depth studies of the black community demonstrate significant progress in the fifty years since 1968 riots, there are also data which point to lasting issues.

African american college graduation rates have lagged. Black unemployment recently improved but remains stubbornly high. One-third of African American males have felony convictions. Black household income, family wealth, and home ownership have only marginally improved (relative to whites) in fifty years. How to reconcile these competing data?

If you believe in critical race theory, you ignore positive developments, blame all negative outcomes on systemic racism, and draw a line in the sand called anti-racism. However, if as the anti-racists posit, America is racist to its core, and the entire system is rigged to protect fragile white egos, we never would have developed the America we have today. This does not mean racism is not a problem: racism is a problem everywhere, all the time. Let me repeat that: racism is a problem everywhere, all the time. But what confronts America is not the all-explaining, systemic racism imagined by anti-racists, but a much more specific challenge: the combination of a small black urban underclass and the soft racist policies that enable and prolong it.

When people imagine the plight of the American black community, what they envision is an urban wasteland with high rates of crime and violence, few jobs, poor housing and services, lousy schools, and no grocery stores. This description is no different from various ethnic minority ghettos of days gone by, and it remains accurate. Why has only this one persisted? There are two main reasons.

First, the racist limits on where blacks can live are devastating to the family, the community, housing prices, wealth accumulation, job and educational opportunities, health and victimization from crime. The solutions to this situation are not easy, but are well understood. The housing discrimination (redlining) which created and limited these communities has been carried on for decades under multiple mayoral and state government administrations. Why? It props up the property values of affluent city neighborhoods, keeps their schools segregated, and limits exposure to crime. This policy preference has persisted despite decades of Democratic Party control of major cities, and even despite the development of black-majority polities and local governments!

Which points to the second reason: a willingness among black and white activists to honor anti-social behaviors within the black community as some kind of legitimate, indigenous culture. The urban hellscape I described earlier was consistent across racial and ethnic groups, but previous inhabitants were forced to choose: abandon the anti-social behavior or be locked up or deported. Only the African-American community has been given a different alternative: stay in the slums and make a virtue out of the vices. Given the lack of opportunities (of all types), it is not surprising a number (remember, still a minority!) choose to remain mired. None of the anti-social behaviors were unique to black culture, nor did they stem from some mythic African past. Yet now they are celebrated.

There are overwhelming social science data on the negative effects of single-parent families, paternal absence, truancy, toleration of petty crime or exposure to drug use. One doesn’t have to criticize those struggling with these issues in recognizing what the data say. Add these factors in to the previous mix of poverty and hopelessness I described earlier and you have a toxic cultural brew. Affirm this toxic mess as a cultural inheritance and you have our current state of affairs.

Remember, it’s not that successful African Americans don’t face racial slights, indignities, and tangible torts: they absolutely do, every day. This remains a challenge we must all continue to face. Successful African Americans have the character to ignore them, the resources to avoid the provocations, or the access to legal or social remedies. But this is not the case for black urban underclass, and the problems there won’t be fixed with the same solutions.

I’ve touched on the solution before: a real effort to eliminate redlining’s legacy and to foster the growth and retention of a black middle class in the cities. Nowadays, the first thing a successful black family does is leave the city. Assisting them in becoming home-owners in the city’s affluent districts, or remaining in gentrifying neighborhoods, is a tangible and feasible policy. So is building affordable housing in those same areas and redeveloping the remaining areas. This in turn improves educational and professional prospects. But this would mean big-city mayors taking on the segregated, affluent power centers of their metropolises. Don’t hold your breath.

Even all this–by itself–won’t succeed. Work must also be done with leaders of the African American community to acknowledge those anti-social behaviors which have previously been tolerated or even celebrated. Past efforts in this vein have faltered as they were painted by activists as “blaming the victim,” which, in the absence of any other program to correct the problems, was true. However, no policy will succeed without addressing the self-harm the black community does. Strengthening the black nuclear family and addressing the problems associated with fatherlessness are key components. Again, where are the courageous leaders who will take this stand?

The over-emphasis on race embodied by the anti-racism movement and Critical Race Theorists defines the problem all wrong. When all you see is race, every issue becomes racism. Focusing on police violence is daft when only three percent of black murder victims are victims of police violence. Citing the greater effect of the coronavirus on African Americans is misguided when what we are seeing is not genetic, but the side effect of poverty and poor health care. Politicians and activists can take credit for meaningless gestures: changing school names while the school itself remains a shambles, or removing statues that are tributes to a history not even taught. And so the game goes on.

If you get the cause and effect wrong, you most certainly have defined the problem wrong.

And two wrongs still won’t make it right.

What Just Happened? Texas

Seeing the so-called news coverage about the blizzard and power outages in Texas, I wanted to do (another) post criticizing all the partisan hot-takes exploiting a natural disaster (also a man-made one, to boot!) to play politics. You know, those blaming “fragile green power” (the GOP), “Red States” (Democrats), or “unbridled capitalism” (Democratic Socialists), to name a few.

Instead, I decided to start another occasional series (What Just Happened, or perhaps WJH?) to give as straightforward as possible a review of some recent event. For the purposes of being as objective as possible, this will never be as instantaneous as a Tweet-storm, but it should be much more factual.

So what just happened in Texas? First and foremost, a snow and ice storm. Now Texans all know that the state gets snow and ice. Even a Yankee like me remembers a January 1st Dallas ice storm as the backdrop for the infamous Joe Montana “chicken soup” game when Notre Dame scored twenty-three points in the final eight minutes to beat the Houston Cougars in the 1979 Cotton Bowl.

A shameless lead-in to an Irish football story

So these storms are not normal, but are not rare. In fact, similar blizzards caused similar outages in 1989 and again in 2011.

Texans like to claim their state is unique, and when it comes to energy, they are right. Texas was the first big energy producing state, and to this day remains the largest US energy-producing state. Back in the 20th century, when electrification was all the rage, Texas was the first to build electricity-sharing networks. Texas looked at its own growth potential, the (then) weak energy potential of its neighbors, the federal government which claimed jurisdiction over interstate energy associations, and decided: we’ll go it alone! So all Texas (less San Antonio and parts of the Panhandle) is on its own, separate electricity network.

How did that work out? Pretty well; for the next seventy years, Texas had plenty of energy to fuel a building boom while enjoying some of the cheapest energy prices anywhere. Texas electricity rates are among the lowest in the nation. They averaged (before the blizzard) about 11 cents per kilowatt hour, although even residential users could find wholesale providers at rates as low as 5 cents per kilowatt hour! ((Note: wholesale providers are advising residential customers to immediately change providers, as now they are charging rates–high demand, low supply–that result in thousand dollar bills!)) Houston went from a small town to the 4th largest US city, and Houstonians could run their air conditioners all-day, most of the year, and pretend the city wasn’t built partially over a swamp.

After the 1965 East Coast blackout, Texas created the Electric Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOT. As the name implies, this non-profit was supposed to ensure Texans never faced a blackout. Over its history, ERCOT was relatively successful: Texas experienced major heat waves (when electricity consumption is at absolute peak) but never a heat-wave induced blackout. But Texas did experience blizzard-induced blackouts in 1989 and 2011. ERCOT was supposed to ensure lessons learned from 2011, along with the introduction of renewable sources (wind and solar) would prevent another blizzard blackout.

The problem in the summer is that electricity demand peaks. People (generally) keep their homes cool even when they’re not there, and of course the offices, stores and restaurants must keep cool too. The advantage is that hot weather generally does not affect electric power generation capacity. Some generative capacity can surge-on-demand (nuclear, natural gas, coal; wind and solar vary, but generally cannot be surged on demand). So the power authority surges to meet demand and there is no problem. Or, the power authority asks others in its network to share additional energy, and still no problem . . . except for Texas, which has no one else with whom to share.

Winter generally has less demand, so normally any increase in demand can be covered by surge, even in Texas. But, or should I say BUT, winter can affect those surge systems. Water pipes (at nuclear plants) or gas lines freeze. Tanker trucks get stuck. Wind turbines freeze. Snow covers solar panels (briefly) or falling snow blocks the sun. Meanwhile, people are stuck in their homes which may not be adequately insulated.

The New York Times created an excellent graphic (they had to ruin it with their explanatory article) showing day-by-day electrical power production under ERCOT:

Power production, by day, before and during the blizzard

You can clearly see several things:

Natural gas not only did not surge, it dropped significantly.
Coal, too experienced a small drop.
Even nuclear had a small drop due to one plant’s closure.
Wind dropped by the greatest percentage and slowly recovered (no, it didn’t cause the blackout).
Solar actually surged, although only in the daylight hours (duh).

Ever wonder why there was a system blackout when the graph shows some power being generated at all times? Power distribution systems are designed to run within tolerances. When demand greatly exceeds electric supply, surges happen which can result in component failures, fires, even explosions. Thus when things get really bad, it’s always better for the power authority to shut it down than risk having to replace costly, perhaps rare systems. That’s a worst case for which they’re prepared.

Several folks have voiced criticisms like “why did turbines freeze in Texas and not in Alaska?” or “why do solar panels work in space, but not Texas?” The second one is too stupid to be believed (it’s not the cold, it’s the snow; there is no snow in space). But the first hints at the problem: gas and water lines, turbines, and delivery vehicles can be winterized, and they were supposed to be. But they weren’t. We don’t know yet why.

Before we jump to the obvious conclusion, consider one more thing: the paradox of worst-case planning. How much do you spend preparing for the worst case? Texas experienced three outages, lasting less than two weeks total, over the last thirty-two years. In the meantime, the daily headline (for over eleven thousand days) was “Texas has the nation’s cheapest energy.” Winterization is cost effective, but not cheap. Any company which went ahead and did it was at a cost disadvantage to others in Texas as they passed along the costs to their customers. The same people attacking the Texas government had nothing but sympathy for Puerto Rico, where Prepa failed to plan for hurricanes which are far more frequent. The American federal government continues to subsidize the rebuilding of homes in flood plains rather than force homeowners to move in order to qualify. Sometimes government acts like a bad parent that lets the kids have candy before dinner.

What about the moral costs of failing to prepare? Twenty-two (at last count) Texans died due to the blizzard, millions were seriously affected, and some even needed to flee (that’s for you, Senator Cruz!). Yet in bluest of blue Illinois, where blizzards are an annual event, eleven people died due to the storm, and millions were affected, and so on. Blizzards kill people and destroy property for the same reason viruses spread: that’s what they do.

So what just happened in Texas? A rare but not unprecedented winter storm, perhaps a type becoming more common. A long-ago policy decision restricted options. The State government failed to confirm whether systems were winterized; we’ll know eventually whether they were mislead or incompetent. Networks proved (once again) to be more robust, although some engineers have pointed out the larger US western electrical network also experienced rolling blackouts, and if Texas had been attached to it, the entire system might have collapsed! Finally, preparation is less costly than recovery . . . if the worst case happens.

Oh, we can certainly confirm hindsight remains 20/20, and politics is always in play.

Mexican Expat Myths #2: You can not criticize the government

This is another oft-repeated saying among expats in Mexico, and yet it sounds odd. It usually comes amidst a heated online discussion, where one party scolds the other, “you can be deported if you criticize the (Mexican) government.” Such a bold statement certainly has an effect in chilling the conversation, but is it true?

You’ll find many expats who remember a case of someone who was deported for criticizing the government or engaging in politics. Or they heard from someone else of a case. But go and Google it for yourself, and it’s hard to find one. The closest I could find was a 2008 case in Merida of a young male expat who claimed he was avoiding a protest rally when Mexican authorities seized him and deported him for engaging in politics. The vast majority of American expats deported (there were only 750 Americans deported in 2020, and those numbers have been steady for decades) were longtime visa overstays (or people in Mexico with no visa at all).

All this goes back to the Mexican constitution. It said (Article IX) that, “Only Citizens of the Republic may take part in the political affairs of the country.” That is pretty plain in black & white. It went further (originally) in Article XXXIII which stated the President “shall have exclusive authority to expel from Mexico, immediately and without trial, any foreigner whose stay is deemed inconvenient.” Wow. That is as blanket a statement of the authority to deport as you’re likely to find!

It is easy to see how that absolute ban on politics and the blanket deportation language led many expats to assume you can’t criticize the government. But there is much more in the Mexican Constitution, and the issue is more nuanced than it would appear. Article I of the document gives all people, not just citizens, “. . . the human rights recognized in this Constitution and in those international treaties to which the Mexican State is a party, as well as the guarantees for their protection, whose exercise cannot be restricted nor suspended except in the cases and under the conditions established by this Constitution.” Article IX says, “The right to associate or unite peacefully for any licit objective cannot be stifled; but only those citizens of the Republic may take part in the country’s political matters.”A 2011 revision changed the President’s blanket authority thusly: “The Executive of the Union, after a hearing, may expel foreigners from the country on the basis of the law…”. Those additions changed the plenary authority of the President to exile an expat to something that must be adjudicated with due process.

Clearly the Mexican government has been liberalizing the rights of foreign residents, but one can see there remains a clear red-line: no political activity. Yet even this is murky. Some expats were appalled by the last American administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP, commonly called “Stay in Mexico”) which forced non-Mexican asylum seekers to await a hearing while remaining in Mexico. Expats spoke publicly against it. But the MPP was an agreement with the government in Mexico City, so the expat protestors were (wait for it) criticizing the position of the Mexican federal government! Yet they all still seem to be around.

So how to interpret all this? Engaging in political speech or action will likely offend someone and get you in trouble. This would include fund-raising, marching, promoting one or the other party: it doesn’t matter whether you are pro- or anti-administration, you might offend someone from another party who could report you. Discussing issues in general, talking with friends, even around a local, is highly unlikely to land you in trouble. Go online in social media sites and the odds get worse, since now there is a record (to be misconstrued, possibly) and you don’t control who sees it. Make yourself a general nuisance to the host nation by leading marches and starting movements, publishing tracts and proposing policies? More likely still: Adios, muchachos! In the end, there are very few recorded cases of expats being deported for engaging in political activity; more often it’s a case of immigration fraud. So have your paperwork in order, and don’t sweat it.

Final judgment: Expats can not criticize the government; Partially True.

Mexican Expat Myths #1: You can not have a gun in Mexico

You’ll hear this common wisdom all the time among expats, sometimes with the added sarcasm of “this isn’t the United States” or “please don’t come here, you gun nut.” Those are the cleaned up versions. Questions about guns seem to bring out the worst in judgmentalism among some expats, but what’s the law say?

Mexico’s constitution (Article X), like its northern and southern neighbors, specifically protects the right to keep a firearm in one’s residence for the purpose of self-protection. This right extends to citizens and legal permanent residents (such as expats). There are many further restrictions, on the size of the weapon, the types of ammunition, permits to carry or hunt with it, buy or sell one. This web of restrictions is what leads expats to believe you can’t have a gun in Mexico, but it’s not quite true.

Part of the confusion about guns is that Mexico’s firearm laws are federal ones, applying across the entire country, while America has some federal rules and a patchwork of state and local regulations that vary between practically denying the constitutional right to promoting mandatory gun ownership (see Kennesaw, Georgia). In Mexico, there is only one set of rules and little tolerance, unless you’re a cartel.

There is only one legal weapon shop in Mexico, near Mexico City, and it is run by SEDENA, the Mexican Department of Defense. You can pre-apply for a permit to bring a weapon into Mexico, but the weapon must meet all the requirements mentioned above and then be carefully brought across the border with much paperwork. As always when laws, paperwork, and border guards are involved, there is a lot of room for miscommunication, corruption, and trouble. Americans who accidentally show up at the border with weapons or ammunition (like they do everyday at US airports) find themselves immediately incarcerated and the subject of diplomatic negotiations.

Why is Mexico so tough on weapons? For one thing, there is that long history of revolutions in which firearms play a significant role. Lately there is the raft of narcotics-related cartel violence. While many weapons confiscated can be traced back to the United States, many thousands more come from the vast quantities of AK-47s (the weapon of choice) that remain available throughout Central America, left over from the various Soviet-sponsored revolutionary movements there. Suffice it to say that the Mexican government feels about weapons trafficked from the United States the same way the US feels about drugs coming from Mexico.

Cue Glenn Frey: “the politics of contraband, the smuggler’s blues.”

So, yes, you can have a gun as a legal permanent resident, but many types of guns are prohibited, there are further limits on numbers, you have to pre-apply to bring one, you have to go through a paperwork hassle to buy one, there are permits for transporting (with significant costs), and your chance of being approved for carrying the weapon (outside your home) are negligble. One can see how some expats, comparing gun ownership here to the States or in Canada, opine “you can’t have one.”

Finally, that right to defense of one’s self at home in Mexico got strengthened in 2018. The changes made it permissible to hit, injure, or even kill any intruder (armed or not) in one’s home, and forbid criminal prosecution of the home defender in such cases. But note this new law, like “castle doctrine” laws elsewhere, has to be interpreted, so don’t accept it as carte blanche.

The larger question is “why would you need a gun?” In the States, this is an incendiary question, because one doesn’t require a reason to exert a constitutional right: “just cause I want to” is perfectly fine. This is clearly not the case in Mexico, where the constitutional right is hemmed in in ways that resemble “why?” For lakeside residents, it’s easy to explain why not. I didn’t own weapons in the States, but I did support the 2nd Amendment. I know expats here who did own weapons in the States, but don’t here (neither do I). Why not? No threat to justify it. Violent crime here locally is minimal, and even less so for expats (another myth I’ll address later).

Final disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. If you are thinking of bringing a weapon to Mexico, or buying one here for self-defense, contact a lawyer who can walk you through all the angles. If there is one thing I have learned in Mexico, it is this: there is the law, and there is what happens; the two don’t necessarily coincide.

Final judgment: Expats can not have a gun; mostly false.