[Reader-list] Terrorist takes a wicket!!

[faiz ullah]

Dear all,



"It was never supposed to be heard over the air" says Dean Jones who's now
been sacked after exclaiming "The terrorist has taken another wicket!" as
'bearded' South African Batsmen Hashim Amla got Kumar Sangakara out.



I don't know if it inadvertently went on-air and it doesn't matter if it
did. The point is that a certain image has now been very rigidly formed of
that "terrorist" and unfortunately the image is only too common. One comes
across so many malicious, hurtful, and widely understood and accepted,
broader labels and images, everyday in schools and workplaces. Labels like
'Bhangi' or 'Chamaar' for long have been used as abuses, but before that
were also used to describe the physical appearance, social status (class has
always been a function of caste in India), etc, of a person/group.


I am unable to draw 'one' conclusion out of this incident, which perhaps has
marks our entry in the second phase of labeling and stereotyping. Till some
time back a bearded man could've been readily called a Muslim or a Sikh, but
now a bearded man will not only be recognised only as a Muslim but also as a
terrorist/potential terrorist. The vocabulary is fast changing. Babri Masjid
in some time became "Disputed Structure" to now being widely referred to as
"Ram Mandir". The images on the 'Ram-Nami' have changed and now seem more
belligerent. The chants that all of us used to repeat during the "Parikrama"
at Ayodhya have changed from the innocent "Siya Ram" and 'Ram Ram" to "Jai
Shri Ram". I don't know if I'm reading too much into it. Or reading things
that don't require a reading. Any comments??

Much Regards,

Faiz


Also some thing That i came across at the Rand Foundation's website:


"The biometric system used at Super Bowl XXXV relied on facial recognition.
Specifically, surveillance cameras surreptitiously scanned spectators' faces
to capture images. Algorithms then measured facial features from these
images—such as the distances and angles between geometric points on the face
like the mouth extremities, nostrils, and eye corners—to produce a "face
print." This faceprint was then instantly searched against a computerized
database of suspected terrorists and known criminals to recognize a specific
individual. A match would have alerted police to the presence of a potential
threat.1

Should we be concerned about the government's use of this technology? One
could argue that "facial recognition" is a standard identification technique
and that it raises no special concerns. After all, we look at each other's
faces to recognize one another."
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