you’d either have to be out of your mind, or have mr. magoo workin’ security to not profile arabs.
hey, I paid cash for a ticket, recently, and got a more thorough search than anybody else.
you don’t hear ME cryin’.
nobody’s proposing searches of ONLY arabs, and nobody’s proposing ritual beatings of arabs before they board.
but, since the anti-profilers don’t have an ounce of common sense going for them, they usually try to stake that strawman up to scare away the ever thoughtful pc crowd.
Because it was obvious to you that you were searched because of a suspicious ACTION. Would you feel as cavelier if they just picked you out because of the way you looked, every time?
Every time I travelled into China from Hong Kong, I had to fill out a declaration stating that I wasn’t HIV+. Anyone of East-Asian looks - Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, American-Chinese, British-Chinese, Malaysian-Chinese, etc. - was exempt from filling in the form. Everyone else had to get in a different line. Because those dirty barbarians are more likely to have HIV, you see.
My little sister got stopped in TN by the cops every single evening for two weeks. She’s black, and was driving into a ‘white area’ (where she lived). Because that car was bound to be stolen, you see.
These two anecdotes illustrate the usefulness of racial profiling.
My little sister got stopped in TN by the cops every single evening for two weeks. She’s black, and was driving into a ‘white area’ (where she lived). Because that car was bound to be stolen, you see.
Of course you sister should just “suck it up”, I mean it’s for the good of the neighborhood. A little inconvenience to black drivers is a small price to pay if it stops all car theft(all car theft has stopped, right?)
To suggest that the suffering of the Iraqi people is anyone’s fault but Sadam Hussein is, IMHO, cuddling up to said dictator.
Still waiting on a feasible plan to check every single person going through America’s airports, 24/7/365. Also still waiting to hear you confirm or deny that the US is to blame for terrorist activity directed against her.
It’s potential threat due to recent world events based on geographical origination, sex, age and religion. However, you can only quess three by looking at someone. So I guess it’s racial, sexual, religious and age profiling. A racist, sexist, religiosist, agist program? Except that it has nothing to do with on race, sex, religion or age being superior to another.
To think that everyone can be trusted no matter what, until proved otherwise is, IMHO, a non-realistic way to view airport passengers. It’s a beautiful way to look at the world, but it just isn’t feasible when it comes to security.
uh…yeah, I think I’d feel just the same, considering the fact that paying for something in cash is just as ‘suspicious’ as looking like one of the many arabs who’ve hijacked planes.
if you think that paying for something in cash makes people terrorists, we’ve got a bigger problem than I thought.
Many Muslims are very Caucasian or “white”. Osama bin Laden could probably recruit very white looking Muslims if “racial profiling” blocked “Arab looking” peoples.
As for the difference between “Mexicans and Pakistanis”, both groups are nationalities, not races or ethnic groups, and include people ranging from completely Caucasoid to completely Mongoloid with many people resulting from a mixture between these groups. That’s why despite being from opposite ends of the earth, many Mexicans and Pakistanis indeed resemble each other. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf looks very much like my Mexican-American neighbor…except my neigbor’s uniform is a UPS one.
Of course Albanian children do not hijack airplanes. However children grow up to become adults, and in warzones (like Bosnia, Kossovo, and Chechnya): at times they grow up to become terrorists. And if you don’t think Albanian and Chechen terrorists with ties to Al-Qaeda do not exist, you must not follow events too closely.
You want to racially sort out “Arabs”. Fine: Osama will recruit 10 blond Chechens and they will enter as humble Russian immigrants or Georgian students and fly around unnoticed!
Anyway, even some of the hijackers didn’t look all that “Arab” (i.e. a native of the Arabian peninsula). Unless you define “Arabs” casually as anyone with some shade of brown, olive, or tan skin and dark hair. who looks “foreign” or “ethnic”. I might even be an “Arab” - I am half Mexican and sort of look like one of those men by late summer.
The successful only way to profile these men is to essentially exclude anyone darker than lily-white from flying. Names can be easily changed or assumed, passports can be forged as well. Now its another issue entirely that most of these men were able to legally enter the United States with their own names, despite having been wanted in other countries and identified on “watch lists”. Common sense law enforcement was lacking, not “Racial profiling”.
Not everything. But some things. Do you see everything in shades of gray?
Block? Exclude from flying? Who exactly is proposing that? Search, yes, examine a bit more closely, yes. But no one is suggesting restricting the flight of anyone.
So might I. And if that means I am searched scrutinized a bit more heavily when I get on a plane, so be it. And in fact, I almost always am.
But look at your own link of the hijackers. Please point out all the hijackers that were not middle eastern in appearance, dark skinned, dark haired, male, between the ages of about 18-30, with middle eastern sounding names. It is more than simple racial.
Agreed. At the time (and even now) common sense law enforcement was (is) lacking. Why you would let anyone on a plane with knives is beyond me. And if someone can now take down a plane with a pair of nail clippers, well that would be a feat unto itslelf.
And at that time there wasn’t a specific need for racial profiling. But this is a new time. And if and when things change, so should the policy. If Osama finds a way to plant plastice explosives on dachounds because of their unique body structure, then we’d better look closely at ever weiner dog that goes on a plane. And that includes half weiner dogs and dogs name “Oscar Meyer” as well.
It seems to me that it is not racial profiling, but overly aggressive security measures that are the true cause for your anger. Would you truly feel no anger about being detained for three hours and having your journal read, had you been absolutely certain that you had been chosen by a purely random process?
Any one of these guys could be a Puerto Rican, Dominican, or Argentinian that I have worked with over the past few years. Same with any of the brothers in my mosque. Were I a terrorist, I would try to become a Brazilian citizen and change my name to Paulo.
I’m not sure how I feel about the profiling. I would support profiling if I thought it likely to work.
let me see if I’ve got osama’s diabolical new plans straight.
FIRST, having learned of our profiling arabs on sight, he sends an arab claiming to be mexican.
when the improbable happens, and he’s ‘mistaken’ for an arab, he simply introduces himself as juan valdez — “no need to search me, senor!”
when lightning strikes twice, and security ignores his request not to be searched, his wig bomb is found, and he’s arrested.
(and most likely deported to mexico…%#&*@!!!)
NEXT, the evil chessmaster sends a band of blonde haired albanian children.
“no need for your american metal detector, imperialist swine, we are but humble russian students oberving your decadent country’s strange ways!”
as they are shockingly herded through the metal detector, their bags are x-rayed, and the assault rifles are found.
seemingly out of schemes, the sheikh of shennanigans falls back on old faithful ---- pilot uniforms w/nametags reading, ‘not arab terrorist’.
unfortunately for us, you guys aren’t the mastermind behind al qaeda.
Well a chap from London named Richard Reid, who was neither an Arab nor a Muslim by birth or name damn near blew up his shoes on an airplane on Al-Qaeda’s orders. And remember Jose Padilla from the Emirate of …South Chicago? Maybe those two were rather inept, but they were Al-Qaeda members who were sent specifically because they were not Arab.
The bottom line is racial profiling “Muslims” is nearly impossible in cosmopolitan setting like a large international airport, just as if we tried to “Racially profile” Roman Catholics in an airport line.
“Hey he looks sort of Irish!”
“He has a Notre Dame Jacket”
“She sort of looks like a nun I knew”
“His last name is Kowalski?”
And as a matter of fact, there has been a lot of concern over the possibility of Al-Qaeda activity in parts of Latin America, especially the no man’s land between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. There are indeed many Arab and Muslim Latin Americans, just as there are white Muslim Europeans, black Muslim converts, Filipino Muslims, slavic Russian Muslims and frankly nutcases with no solid religious leanings who simply want to cause mayhem (like that pair of snipers) .
I really hope no single group is being profiled, because terrorists can come from just about anywhere…Saudi Arabia, Ulster, Chechnya, Brazil, London, upstate New York, math professors from Chicago, housewives from Minneapolis, Gulf War veterans…