An Open Letter To Racial Profilers
Since dimwits like Michelle Malkin are jumping to the conclusion that liberals who are wary about the UAE ports deal somehow validate their own prejudices (as if they ever cared about our opinions anyways), here’s my question : How would a policy of scrutinizing every brown-skinned male with a funny name help us catch people like the infamous American Taliban John Walker Lindh :
…or Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols :
…or Chechen suicide bomber Zulikhan Yelikhadzhiyeva :
…or Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph :
…or Belgian suicide bomber Muriel Degauque :
…or alleged al Qaeda members with normal-sounding (to Western ears) names like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla?
Concentrating on superficial details like skin color and gender doesn’t help when you’re at war with an ideology or a tactic or whatever the hell the “war on terra” is supposed to be. I know the indignity of taking off your shoes at the airport has fueled your dream of replacing metal detectors with a “paper bag test”, but racial profiling doesn’t work. You may get a false sense of security, but trying to justify your own racism by scrutinizing those who fit your stereotype of what sort of person constitutes a threat isn’t just offensive, it’s counter-productive. Not only does racial profiling have the side-effect of making it easier for non-brown dudes to skip through the system, but it also can alienate many of our allies whose support we need if we’re ever going to catch Osama Bin Laden and his million or so second-in-commands.
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Don’t you mean “leery of” the ports deal, instead of “weary about”? I don’t think we’ve begun to get tired of this one yet.
Comment by Bella — February 23, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Good catch. I meant “wary”, not “weary”.
Comment by greg — February 23, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
Democrats question ports deal
Even as President Bush reiterated that Americans ?don?t need to worry about security,? Senate Democr
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — February 23, 2006 @ 12:46 pm
Well put Greg. I have often wondered how exactly we can have a “war on terror.” How is this supposed to work? When did terrorism become something we could stamp out? When did it become a solid flesh and blood beast that only takes 2,000 lives (and counting) to make the world safe?
I’ve heard some people say that the recent actions by Fred Phelps and his looneys is religious terrorism. Is that something we should add to the list to wage war against, Mr. Bush?
Comment by Kryten Syxx — February 23, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
You forgot Timothy McVeigh, as Aryan-looking a terra ist as anyone I’ve ever seen.
Comment by kmiddle — February 23, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
You also forgot Osama Bin Ladin’s left hand man, Dick Cheney.
Comment by Kamachanda — February 23, 2006 @ 4:05 pm
yes, you forgot timothy mcveigh. aren’t you from tulsa/at some point lived in tulsa?
Comment by james — February 23, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
It wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, guys.
Comment by greg — February 23, 2006 @ 10:25 pm
Thanks for bringing some logic to the racial profiling subject. It is amazing how many people believe only brown-skinned males are criminals.
There is a Wal-Mart near my home that stops every non-white shopper leaving the store to check receipts against parcels. The whites are stealing them blind.
Comment by metricpenny — February 24, 2006 @ 6:28 am
What a great week for Talent Show. Two of the best blog entries ever, in as many days. Great work, Greg.
Comment by Mark Spittle — February 24, 2006 @ 9:27 am
On the Walmart thing — I have noticed that myself. A white, middle aged, middle class woman like myself never gets stopped. But people who look like they’re lower-income often do — white or otherwise.
Comment by Bella — February 24, 2006 @ 10:37 am
Regarding the Walmart comments:
I work right next to a Mall in suburban Massachusetts. I’ll often go over there during my lunch break. Middle Aged White Women are robbing the Mall blind ALL THE TIME. They set off the alarms but no one does anything. If some who was darker skinned or younger set off the alarms, I’m sure they’d be stopped.
Comment by Marcus — February 24, 2006 @ 11:01 am
Locally, one of the Walmarts stopped an older white male when he set off the alarm. There was a sensor in his sweat-suit. He said he’d purchased it the day before, but they claimed it was stolen and set him home in his underwear. He showed up the next day with the reciept and his lawyer. He can buy a lot of sweats now….
Everybody sing the Walmart song:
Walmart Walmart uber alles, uber alles, uber alles….
Comment by Kamachanda — February 24, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
I get your point about racial profiling, but please leave John Walker Lindh out of it. His father, Frank Lindh, recently broke his silence of 4 1/2 years to tell Lindh’s story (http://www.alternet.org/story/31211/) and it is sickening. Billed in the media as “American Taliban” and reviled as a terrorist, ultimately the only charge prosecutors were able to make stick was that Lindh violated the economic sanctions President Clinton had imposed against the Taliban. He was really guilty of being a stupid kid, and for that he nearly died, was tortured by his American captors (if you can believe that, I say wholly sarcastically) and was sentenced to spend 20 years of his life in prison. Lindh was an early victim of the post-9/11 hysteria that gripped even some people who should have known better. Please treat him with more kindness.
Comment by Suzy — February 24, 2006 @ 9:06 pm
Great work buddy! You’ve done a brilliant job to raise the racial profiling subject in this way.
Comment by abigail — February 25, 2006 @ 6:24 am
Wal*Mart isn’t the only large retail chain that racially profiles exiting shoppers. In the late 90’s I worked for a normal Target store in Tampa. Usually once or twice a day the alarm would go off when someone left the store. The only time the security staffer would ask to see the person’s bag was if they were anything but white. It is fair to say that a majority of our shoppers were middle to upper class whities. Still, the statistics do not make profiling right.
I’ve had 3 occasions where my bag would go off when I purchased games or electronics from Targets. If they went off I would just go to customer service and have to verify my items and try to deactivate the security tags again. NOT ONCE did the security guard ask me to step back inside and open my shopping bag. Now, I don’t dress like the middle class white guy that I am. I wear beat up jean shorts, a shirt from t-shirt hell, and a Mudvayne hat. I guess if I was darker I would be in so much trouble.
Comment by Kryten Syxx — February 25, 2006 @ 10:28 am
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