University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Crime Alert Reaction

-----These Comments were collected Via Facebook---

UMPD crime alert (copy pasted below my message) has offended a lot of members of the Cedar-Riverside and Somali community; many residents and community members think it's racist. When the email was sent out, City Councilmember Cam Gordon forwarded it to an online Cedar-Riverside forum. The reaction from Somali residents was a loud and angry one. Residents were angry with the usage of the term "East AFrican accent". They asked - what is an East AFrican accent? It's really vauge and subjective which I agree with. Having said that, we can't deny that many East Africans DO have an accent when they speak English. But East Africans from different regions have different accents. So how can you generalize that into one East African accent?

The second problem with this terminology, in my opinion, is that many people wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between diverse E African accents anyway. Because there is a preconceived notion of all crime in Cedar being associated with Somalis, whether you say the criminal had an Ethiopian/Oromo/Eritrean/Somali accent isn't going to stop people from thinking s/he was Somali.

So it's a twofold problem:
1. You can't define an East African accent, so maybe the UMPD should stop syaing that.
2. There is an erroneous assumption that all crime in Cedar and all crime committed by East Africans is Somali.

Knowing these problems, what are the solutions? I'm interested in knowing what you guys think about this and what we can do. When I was a freshman, there was a big ruckus about this same issue when the alerts would say "Somali". The SSA president back then worked with the UMPD to do diversity trainings and asked they use the term "East AFrican" but clearly, even this is not enough because people are still getting angry.

My question is: is this anger about the use of the word East African, or this anger that the community already has because of past tensions and issues (like police targeting/stopping/questioning/searching Somalis etc)? I feel like there has already been a lot of anger about other things but this is like the straw that's breaking the camel's back...

What do you all propose should be used instead? Because whether you like it or not, the UMPD is going to have to include racial descriptors (white, black, asian etc) in order to identify the criminal. But how should they do it?



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University of Minnesota Police are asking for the public's help in
identifying three suspects in a robbery that occurred in the Carlson
School of Management building on Tuesday, February 23 at approximately
2 p.m. See photos below.

The robbery victim -- a university employee -- was in her office when
two suspects entered, threatened violence, and demanded money. The
victim complied and was not harmed, and the suspects fled.

Both suspects are between the ages of 18 and 20 years old and both
spoke with an east African accent. A third suspect is also seen in the
photos captured by campus video surveillance cameras.

If you have information about the identity of the suspects in the
photos or any information about the case, please call the University
of Minnesota Police Department at 612-624-COPS. Refer to case number
UM-10-050809.