The truth is that I did not know the whole story. According to my parents, my ancestors experienced a lot of racial profiling, for at least 20 years. When my grandmother emigrated to the United States in 1958, she and her fellow German immigrants were profiled as Nazis for years. Anyone with a German accent, style of dress or habit was profiled and discriminated against. The sad thing is that it only took one crazy leader to cause generations of hardship for many races.
Another more recent example is Reverend Terry Jones with his Koran burning scheme. He caused a bad light to be shone on Christians. I am a Christian, and this frustratingly was shone on me while he was in the news. Our school is fairly tolerant in my eyes, and I did not experience any extreme hardship or abuse because of claiming the same religion as this radical, but I definitely got "the look" when the subject of Reverend Jones came up, as people watched to see if I would back him up.
Now, another leader has incited his followers to kill. We aren't sure who is working for him. He's a few fries short of a Happy Meal, and we've been tightening security because of the threat. Do all of the Arabs who travel through an airport deserve to be searched more than others? Probably not. But when just 19 radicals killed about 3000 people in one day, I believe that a little extra searching is called for when dealing with those who are from the same area as the perpetrators. Do I understand what this is like for those who are searched? No. Will I? Maybe not. But I certainly have had a taste. Each generation will have their group who is discriminated against. That's the way things are with humanity. But I will contend that those who have the most likelihood of being terrorists should be searched a little more, and hopefully that will save the United States a few thousand more lives.
David-
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, great post! I have to agree and disagree, though. I agree that extra searching has been necesitated sice 9/11. I do not think, though, that "extra searching is called for when dealing with those who are from the same area as the perpetrators." Being from the same area does not mean people will take similar action. Looks cannot determine whether or not someone needs extra searching, too, and airport security often justifies extra questioning by a turban, dark skin, beards, etc. Thanks, though, for your insite. Very thought provoking :)
I also will have to disagree with your post, David. Besides the fact that I think racial profiling is ethically wrong because it is dangerous to make conclusions about an entire region/religion based on a few people's actions, I also believe it is ineffective. I assume now that groups like Al-Qaeda know that many Americans are suspicious of muslim garb, and therefore people dressed traditionally are unlikely to commit acts of terrorism simply due to the attention they would receive. I think terrorist groups will want to assimilate their terrorists, to have more successful missions, and therefore racial-profiling of those who look muslim would be ineffective.
ReplyDeleteYour reference to the Quran burning is bizarre. Mainly, I don't quite understand your purpose for including it, except to say that you can relate to being persecuted for your background, which I doubt. Sorry to say, I don't believe it for a second when you say that people looked down upon you for your religion because both you and Jones are Christian. I'm sure Jones made Christianity look bad, and perhaps it opened up some angry dialogs among atheists, but so many people are Christian that I simply find it hard to believe anyone would be able to single out a person in a room and give them 'the look,' when it's pretty likely they don't know the religious affiliation of half the other people in the room. But perhaps that did happen to you.
ReplyDeleteChristianity tends to be seen as normal in American society. Intolerant/extremist actions by a Christian tend not to be attributed to Christians as a whole so much as to the individual's problems, at least with the case of Jones (and the more-extreme Westboro Baptists). Because Christianity is the majority, and Jones was one man, I doubt that many Americans saw it as a trend in Christians as a whole, or attributable to the Christian faith. However, it is far more common for an act of Islamic extremism to be attributed to the religion itself.
As for racial profiling, I don't know where I stand, exactly. I think more efficient use of intelligence information and psychological profiling would be more effective. If a terrorist makes it to the gate, that probably means it's already too late. But I really don't know anything about it.
Well, all these comments made me think a little harder about what I was exactly saying. It seemed that I was saying that people should be accused of something or judged based on their appearance alone. Only appearance. Well, I think that that is wrong as well. Possibly, racial profiling can be used as a tool along with other tactics to catch terrorists. For example, passengers who pay with cash are higher risk. People who buy one way tickets are high risk as well. A terrorist would have no reason to buy a return ticket, and may not have a lot of money and had scrounged what they could in cash. Then only if something showed up in the screening process and they were acting very nervous or suspicious should they be pulled aside for extra questioning. Maybe racial profiling could be used as a final indicator other than these four (cash, one way ticket, x ray goes off, suspicious behavior) to detect terrorists more effectively. Using only racial profiling, in hindsight, seems like a gross infringement on one's rights.
ReplyDeleteIf one recalls events of recent history, the 9/11/2001 hijackers were all younger men from Islamic countries. Since 9/11, the most recent terrorist attempts against US airlines were by a Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab (The flight departed from Amsterdam and was headed for Detroit, Michigan) and before then, Richard Reid, a British citizen and convert to Islam who attempted to ignite a fuse in his shoe on an American Airlines flight from Paris, France, to Miami, Florida.
ReplyDeletePolice and security authorities look for patterns or similarities in order to better identify people with mal-intent. In the case of the most recent terrorists, the similarities are quite clear and obvious. None was over 35 years old. All men. All middle-eastern. All Muslim. None were old women. None were from Europe. None were Buddist or Christian or Shinto. You get the idea. So why is it wrong to use the actual facts to respond where the threat is greatest?
Profiling should be used to help authorities identify all attributes of those that would do us harm. Racial profiling alone would be inadequate and would ignore many of the other characteristics of potential terrorists.
Don't be misled that "racial profiling" is the same as "profiling." Those that take the time to educate themselves will know better.