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• Sunday, December 11, 2005 03:48 PM

  Planes, guns and skin color

  I find the actual presence of gun-toting sky marshalls on board passenger aircraft to be a greater source of anxiety than the prospective presence of hijackers. The Alpizar shooting only reinforces that anxiety. The killing of Mr. Alpizar is a horrifying consequence of the assumption that guns are the best response to our insecurities. In reality, the presence of armed agents only makes it inevitable that any "threat" will provoke a lethal reaction, regardless of the reality or the degree of that threat.

  Placing sky marshalls on board aircraft is not necessarily a bad idea. But if those marshalls were unarmed, or armed with non-lethal weapons such as tasers, Rigoberto Alpizar would be alive today. It is quite unlikely that terrorists would knowingly take the chance of encountering well-trained agents in the course of a hijacking, even if they knew that the agents carried no guns.

  Finally, Patrick is quite right to draw attention to the parallel between the shooting of Menezes in the London subway and the Alpazar shooting. Those Americans who insist that marshalls with guns are essential to their safety never imagine that they themselves could be at the wrong end of the barrel. This sense of safety - or should we call it immunity? - comes from the knowledge that their skins lack a certain pigmentation. Being a brown-skinned man like Menezes and Alpizar, I lack such assurance, and fear the "misunderstandings" that accompany this culture of paranoia.

  S. Sen

  —s. sen Read s. sen's other letters
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