4A • WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 2011
OUR VIEW
State should react to auto ‘black box’ mandate
The federal government is
inching closer to requiring all
passenger vehicles to be
equipped with “black box”
recorders, the kind mostly associ-
ated with aircraft-crash recon-
struction.
Final details have yet to be
worked out, but the National
Highway Traffic Safety
Administration is expected to
announce the requirement with-
in a month, according to several
news accounts.
If so, it would mark the contin-
uation of a disturbing trend
toward government intrusion
into the personal lives of its citi-
zens. The black boxes, known
SKETCH PAD
OTHER VIEWS
The old taboos, back in the news
Sex, power, class and race. The
scandals encircling French politi-
cian Dominique Strauss-Kahn,
who is accused of sexually assault-
ing an African-born maid in New
York, and Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who has confessed to having a
child out of wedlock with a Latina
housekeeper, for all their differ-
ences, conjure major taboos.
The stories hold our attention
not just because they involve pow-
erful men brought down to size
(always an American favorite) but
because they remind us of the
often hidden history of interracial
sex, and its roots in global migra-
tion, labor markets and social hier-
archies.
For much of U.S. history, misce-
genation — racial mixing — was a
bad word deemed unacceptable in
polite white society. Paradoxically,
however, it was polite white socie-
ty that was most responsible for
that mixing, most often with
women who worked in their
households, as slaves and later as
servants.
In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote
that the “white race which today
resents race mixture in theory has
been chiefly responsible for the
systematic misuse and degrada-
tion of darker women.”
In the antebellum South, virtu-
ally every plantation produced
mixed-race children. The 1860
census classified 588,532 persons
as mulattoes, largely the offspring
of illicit master/slave relations.
Cornell University historian
Edward E. Baptist has observed
the widespread use of the term
“fancy maid” in the U.S. slave
trade, which referred to women
considered sex workers first and
housekeepers second.
Even after slavery ended, sexual
exploitation of black servants by
white employers continued.
According to Calvin College sociol-
ogist Barbara Omolade, “black
women domestic servants in every
region of the country ... com-
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OPINION
more formally as event data
recorders, are favored by law
enforcement and insurance com-
panies for obvious reasons fol-
lowing collisions and even crimi-
nal activities.
The black boxes have been
around for years in various forms.
Some are self-contained units,
some are part of airbag deploy-
ment systems and some are inte-
grated with other information
devices, such as OnStar. The
NHTSA rule would likely specify
the types of data to be recorded
and the way it is to be stored for
later use.
Personal privacy is a huge
issue in the use of these devices.
Even those who see potential
GREGORY
RODRIGUEZ
plained of the sexual ‘harassment’
that went along with domestic
work, especially as a ‘sleep-in-
maid.’”
Historians see two constants in
the history of miscegenation. One
is the element of labor: worker and
boss, slave and master. In societies
that demanded separation of
races, economics worked against
it. Whatever else the work relation-
ship was, it was also just that, a
relationship. The opposite of sepa-
ration. The second element was
that relationship’s inequality.
Bosses always have power over
employees, and the more unequal
the relationship, the more likely it
is to result in illicit sex.
The Romans routinely made
slaves — and sexual partners — of
those they conquered. In his histo-
ry of the Roman Empire, Paul
Veyne writes that it created oppor-
tunity that led to temptation.
“There was a word for husbands
who gave in to that temptation:
ancillariolus, maid-chaser. Their
wives despaired of them.”
Nearly two millennia later,
under the British Raj in India,
English “gentlemen” openly pur-
sued interracial sexual liaisons
with household help. An early 19th
century guidebook for men bound
for the civil, military or naval serv-
ice of the Honorable East India Co.
listed ways Englishmen could find
native women who would be
“bosom friends” as well as house-
keepers.
The North American colony
that was the most profoundly
affected by this type of unequal
relationship wasn’t the American
South but Mexico. Over the cen-
turies, racially mixed people there
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benefit from the devices should
be concerned about access to
their vehicle’s data and the inter-
pretation of that data.
Major auto accidents with
injuries or deaths are one thing.
One suspects that the loathsome
aspect of black-box data would
come from more minor events.
Would, say, a car-rental company
impose fees because a clerk
determined its vehicle was used
above the speed limit? What
about retroactive tickets for not
wear a seat belt, or speeding, or
not fixing a broken tail light?
California was the first state to
require notification to car buyers
that event data recorders are
became the majority population.
Historian Woodrow Borah identi-
fied the one policy that con-
tributed most to the mixture in
Mexico as the Spanish crown’s
decision in 1630 to allow Indian
laborers to contract individually
with their Spanish overlords. The
conquest set the stage; the eco-
nomic relationship did the rest.
Of course, in Rome, India,
Mexico and the Deep South, it’s
hard to say how many liaisons
were rape and how many were
consensual. It’d be equally hard to
say that love was never present. In
the case of colonial Mexico, subju-
gation, exploitation and disease
decimated the native population,
leaving some Indian women to
seek refuge in the arms of the con-
querors.
Today, in America the decision
to date or marry across racial or
ethnic lines generally happens in a
social sphere where there is basic
equality. Janny Scott’s new biogra-
phy of Stanley Ann Dunham
shows this precisely, as Barack
Obama’s mother meets and mar-
ries a fellow student at the
University of Hawaii who happens
to be Kenyan.
But Schwarzenegger’s liaison
with a housekeeper and Strauss-
Kahn’s alleged criminal behavior
with a hotel maid — if true — sug-
gest that not everything has
changed. The stories are different
in dozens of ways, not the least of
which are criminal charges in one
and not the other. But the similari-
ty is just as unavoidable, the echo
of inequality. What has been
admitted to in Brentwood and
alleged in New York City is nothing
if not the dark side of the global
melting pot.
Gregory Rodriguez is executive
director of the Center for Social
Cohesion at Arizona State
University and a columnist for the
Los Angeles Times. Readers may
send him email at
grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com.
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TODAY’S NEWS-HERALD
installed in vehicles by the manu-
facturer. That was a first step.
States can and should legislate
the legal limits of these devices.
What is their admissibility in court
proceedings? Who is an expert in
data interpretation? Is a search
warrant required to obtain the
data? These arenas are all within
the purview of individual states.
The idea of people wearing
black boxes would be laughable.
The idea that homes contain
event recorders available to law
enforcement would be a non-
starter. Isn’t a similar intrusion
into private vehicles just as over-
reaching?
— Today’s News-Herald
YOUR VIEWS
What really was
won in Refuge vote?
Editor:
This letter is to Dennis Shilling in response to Mr.
Shilling’s post on the forum at havasunews.com.
Forum: “WE WON!!!!!
To All — We won, and we won big.
‘Thank you’ to all of you that supported the cause and
helped to communicate the message.
As we look back I think we will all agree that this was
truly a Grass Roots effort. YOU have made a difference.
In short – UNBELIEVABLE.
Dennis”
What was won? New jobs? No.New tax revenues for the
city? No. New visitor attraction? No. A better economic
growth agenda? No.An improved reputation for better
business environment? No. Complying with the unani-
mous vote by a freely elected City Council? No.
I am hard pressed to find more than 1 percent of peo-
ple who truly understood what they voted against. It
reminds me of the vote against our schools. When the full
facts were known, the “no” voters admitted that they erred
in voting against the last school referendum. I expect the
same will happen with this vote.
I fully support the democratic/representative process.
That is why we elected reasonable City Council members
who unanimously approved the annexation. Why would
any reasonable person ever serve on the City Council
again?
I attended each public meeting and kept an open
mind. I evaluated all the facts and took the effort to sort
through the false rhetoric. I personally spoke to many
people on both sides of this annexation issue.
I do not think the election result was indicative of what
a fully informed public would have preferred. But then
again, the masses have been fooled before, just look
through history.
Congrats. A pyrrhic victory for your special interest
group.
Gary Meyers
Lake Havasu City
‘Nay-sayers’ stifle positive growth
Editor:
Subject: Your Friday the 20 editorial
I totally agree with you on the philosophy behind the
Refuge annexation vote. There is that small, but vocal,
minority that seems to continue to be able to stifle any-
thing in terms of positive growth in Lake Havasu.
In fact, when I attended the speech by the ASU
President the other day, I was surprised that there weren’t
any NO TO ASU signs to be found. I guess I’ll just have to
wait.
If the “nay-sayers” are dollar conscious, they can get a
deal if they also have the NO TO THE ENGLISH VILLAGE
DEVELOPMENT signs printed at the same time.
Havasu residents: Wake up before you are living in a
clone of Needles.
Michael Mathers
Lake Havasu City
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