I recently cited my 30 years of experience in selling to governments by using the acronym B2G (business to government). This confused the person I was talking to, who had heard of B2B (business to business) but not B2G.
By the same token, you have KYB (know your business) and KYG (know your government).
Two recent incidents in Southern California indicate that some of us are pretty bad at KYG.
El Pendón Estrellado
In case you haven’t been paying attention to the news, a lot of people in Southern California and elsewhere are talking about a portion of the Department of Homeland Security called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Not to be confused with the Queen – David Bowie fan.
I won’t get into the details about why people are paying attention to ICE right now, but let’s just say that when ICE shows up, a crowd gathers.
And that’s what happened at Dodger Stadium this morning when some white vans showed up at the Dodger Stadium parking lot. The Dodgers stated that ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and that the Dodgers denied them access.
Except that it apparently wasn’t ICE, but Customs and Border Protection, another part of the Department of Homeland Security.
“‘This had nothing to do with the Dodgers. CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement,’ Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.”
The Dodgers may be sensitive about things at the moment, since they apparently attempted to persuade Nezza NOT to sing the National Anthem in Spanish recently.
San Ber’dino
But it isn’t just people in Chavez Ravine that assume that white van equals ICE. Take my county, San Bernardino County. Or as former county resident Frank Zappa put it, San Ber’dino.
Recently the Sheriff’s Department made a statement.
[The] department is sending a message to the community following two incidents involving white department vehicles that it says were “targeted” after being mistaken for Immigration and Customs Enforcement units.
“All white vehicles are NOT ICE,” read Thursday’s post on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s X account….
“We have had two incidents of our sheriff’s department personnel targeted while driving our unmarked units and in one case they were run off the road,” the post reads.
With so many agencies providing law enforcement and homeland security services, it’s understandable that some people could get confused about exactly which agency is at their door. ICE? CBP? The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (SBCSD)?
Don’t forget that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) also uses white vans (although they’re marked).
So if you’re not careful, the white van that you block may not be trying to send people to El Salvador, but instead may be trying to deliver your Amazon shipment.
Bredemarket 