# Is this racial profiling? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-racial-profiling/594423 "2011-08-28T22:23:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-racial-profiling/594423/141 "2011-09-01T03:17:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > But in order for this to be the case, we must assume not only that Suzie is afraid of beards or whatever, but ALSO that there’s some policy/whatever-the-fuck dictating that a single insane crew-member’s accusation can derail (to mix metaphors) a flight. That’s assumption on top of assumption, making it even more remote a possibility. To begin with I still disagree that the possibility that the stewardess was simply stupid/paranoid is significantly less likely than the racial angle. I maintain my disagreement that if we should discard those possibilities because one would quickly meet a ‘trifecta’ situation where a bearded man didn’t want his luggage touched and was reading a book having some to do with airplanes, that we could also expect a dark-skinned man to be reading a book having something to do with airplanes who didn’t want his luggage touched. I maintain that some people have decided that this is a racist event, and are arguing backwards from that point in an attempt to justify their conclusions. That being said, I think that your claim that an alternate gloss is even less likely now if we assume that the airline has some sort of policy in place about receiving reports of terrorism is an instance of that backwards-driven rationalization designed to support a pre-chosen conclusion. For liability purposes alone, I’d find it truly shocking if airlines did _not_ have a policy in place that they have to investigate all allegations of terrorists on their planes. Can you imagine the legal fallout if a plane was blown out of the sky and on the black box the victims families found a recording of a stewardess reporting someone she thought was a terrorist and the pilot going “Naw, let’s just get into the air. What’s the worst that could happen?” ---
**Author:** ![Bri2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/48db29/32.png) [@Bri2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bri2k)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-racial-profiling/594423/142 "2011-09-02T08:59:44Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > What does that prove? Maybe you’re a terrorist who’s heard the “one-way ticket story” over the last decade and decided to be smarter about it? Have there been any terrorists flying round-trip out of their hometowns where they lived their entire lives? What I’m saying is a little basic investigation is a better way to sort out threats than our current system. The information is there, they just have to use it. Do you think it’s more effective to be feeling up children and old people? Bri2k ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2011, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-racial-profiling/594423/143 "2011-09-02T10:55:12Z")
> [@Bri2k](#): > > Have there been any terrorists flying round-trip out of their hometowns where they lived their entire lives? > > What I’m saying is a little basic investigation is a better way to sort out threats than our current system. The information is there, they just have to use it. Do you think it’s more effective to be feeling up children and old people? Of course not. But the system you’re asking for doesn’t prove much of anything. Establishing a “civilian” identity is trivially easy. You quite literally don’t have to do anything after moving some place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-racial-profiling/594423.md?page=7)