Racial Profiling
 

I'm not sure if there's a thread concerning this already, but this was the hot topic at my family dinner tonight (yes, there ALWAYS has to be debate over dinner...we can never just eat!!)

My entire family is in favor of profiling Arabs at airports and I was the only one who was completely against it (which makes it hard for me, by far the quietest one in my family, to argue)

Does anyone have any opinions on this? My mom says that while its not ideal, intelligent people of Arab descent should understand why they need to be searched extra, while I say its like government sanctioned racism based completely on September 11th, while the majority of terrorism isn't even in this country. (There's a lot more I have to support my opinion too , but I'm just not going to type it all out!!)

The goal of racial profiling is often to stop crime or prevent acts of terror. Of course, racial profiling does not meet that goal. Had it met that goal, it would be used still (well formally accepted anyway).

Mathematically you can prove how racial profiling also doesn't work. Here is a paper that talks about that http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=471901

In term of terror, America's ally Israel which faces the most Arab terror does not racially profile. Many Israelis are of different races and thus it would be difficult first of all. Second of all, when you profile then someone will try and beat it by sending in someone that doesn't match the profile - a blonde woman to take a plane hostage for example.

-Rudey

It's a very touchy issue. There are terrorists who are not of Arabic descent, of course. That video that they've been showing recently on CNN on the 9/11 terrorists being taken aside and checked is pretty creepy. Perhaps, if someone did something different, maybe took a little more time, things could have been different. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess, huh? I'm all for taking someone aside if they seem suspicious but searching every single person that looks like they are from the Mid-East is the wrong way to go.

I think if your family members were members of the groups that are racially profiled,their views would be different.

Does anyone know where one could find the statistics on all the terrorist attacks of the past 30 to 40 years and who commited them? Is there an internet site or anything? Anyway, I wanted to get some statistics on them.

You'll have to dig in a lot of sites. Many statistics are very crude and limited. Some only concentrated on radical ISlam, while ignoring other act of terrorisms. Some concentrate on one region only, while other will concentrate on the methods. You'll have to dig into all of them and then add them together.

You took the words out of my mouth.


My sister was recently racially profiled. When the guy interviewing her at the border found out she was muslim, he went asking her stupid questions like do you have terrorists in your family? country of origin? do yuo know anyone against bush? what are their names? what sect of Islam are you? have you been to afghanistan?......when she asked why she was being asked these outlandish questions...they said "its standard". Right? I call that racially profiling.

But if America decides to racially profile everyone (w/o probable cause or the "innocence until proven guilty), then they will waste their time stepping all over all arab-looking persons rights in the U.S, and not hunting down the REAL criminals.

Racial profiling is nothing new. It's Americas way of understanding and reinforcing their ideals of "the others".

"Do you know anyone against Bush?"

What kind of ridiculously vague question is that??!!!

That's the the customs agent at the Toronto airport who asked me if "I wanted to be with this woman?"

I was 13 years old and travelling back from Wisconsin with my mother. The customs agent asked me who the woman was I was with and if I wanted to be with her. I said my mother then looked at him thinking...damn it man, I'm 13 years old, of course I don't want to be with my mother! I'm a teenager I wanted to do everything on my own, what a stupid question! So I figured it was best to tell him I did.

What you say may have merit, but it's not just true of America.

A few years ago, on a bus tour of parts of Europe, while crossing the Swiss border, the only people who had anything more than a cursory passport check was a family of Vietnamese. The rest of the bus were your average white people.

I felt they were treated rather crudely, and the fact that they were being treated to a different standard was obvious.

Other countries solved this problem ages ago and are honkie dorie!

-Rudey

DeltaAlum,

Actually Americans do it in a more visible manner. I'll give you an example:

On Labour day, after a long trip from Toronto, they decided to pull us over at the detroit border. He just looked at us, and pulled us over. Mind you, the majority of the people coming back were Caucasians, but the Customs office was filled to the max with just non-caucasian. Then a bunch of Amish looking folks came in, had no documents with them, and one agent (caucasian) let them go, in front of everybody. Another black agent just went off on the guy, talking about this aint right. At the border, they don't really care how obvious they are of pulling all immigrant-looking folks, even if their documents are right.


I have never gotten pulled over when going back to Canada, not once. And I go every weekend.

Also, racial profiling was all the rage before Sept. 11, and it was the young A.A. males.

That falls into the "must be nice" file.

Do you have any sort of empirical proof other than your story?

-Rudey

Yeah, read a book about racial profiling.

I would recommend "Driving while Black" by Kenneth Meeks. It'll explain it to yah real nice.

Really? So that book examines racial profiling in different countries and does some sort of analysis?

-Rudey

Actually it talks about racial profiling here and gives you lots of stats about it. That is emprical proof other than my story.

Or talk to ex-custom agents, and they'll tell you exactly how they racially profile people.

Sometimes it's difficult to read simple things, but, again, does it compare America to other countries or not?? Simple question.

-Rudey

Understand, but this was pretty obvious, too. The way it worked on most of the trip was that the tour guide took all of the passports into the frontier checkpoint while we all stayed on the bus, the border folks looked at them and we went on our way.

This started out the same way, but when the Swiss border police (whatever they're called) saw the Vietnamese looking names on the passports, two of them borded the bus and questioned the family at some length. They were actually pretty rude.

Maybe the NVA and VC didn't buy enough Swiss Army Knives.

I am for profiling. The cops are just targeting the criminal element.

And that element is...:confused:

Exactly. There are murderers, rapists, terrorists, drug dealers, etc... of every race. How do you determine who should be profiled?

Consider yourself lucky! I have gotten pulled over and/or questioned more by Canadian customs (there is this one chick who is all up in my grill, asking me questions about my family and everything)...it got to the point where I take another border crossing if I am coming home from work after the NEXUS lane is closed

(I was like "damn, you ain't nevah seen a Black woman before?")

Coming into the US, they wave me on thru, no problem

You'd be surprised how many people truly never have,lol. Poor babies...

No, Canadian customs agents are all hard asses and enjoy giving people a hard time. You should hear the story my dad and uncle tell when they tried to bring my uncles boat across in Canada.
The crazy lady would even let them use her pen!
When I was coming home, the Canadian agent was such an ass, I wanted to shout out the window "Would it kill you to crack a smile?" Geez!

The U.S agent when I went to Ohio 2 weekends ago was very nice and even made sure we had the proper directions.

As much as I hate to say this, always expect problems from the Canadian customs agents.

It's been my experience (hardly a scientific survey here) that Customs Agents tend to be nastier to their own countrypersons. I generally find that when I'm visiting another country, the Customs people are nicer to me when I enter a foreign country than are US Agents when I return.

I have a theory on that, but no basis in fact, so I won't even mention it.

Actually the male agents aren't all that bad. It's the women that are into giving people a hard time.

I find it humorous that while we are speaking about the ills of racial profiling you are engaging in sexual profiling.

racial profiling
 

I'm not for racial profiling in general, but I wouldn't mind customs and airlines profiling people who are citizens of countries that sponsor terrorism. Not US citizens of Arab descent, but if somebody is a citizen of Libya for instance, search his ass. That just makes since.

Also, what are some of y'alls suggestions for airline/border safety? Should all searches be random? Should every person be searched (more so than standard metal detectors)? Is it ever considered not racial profiling when an Arab gets searched?

Honestly, I think airline safety is pretty good. But, I think searching everyone would be the only fair AND accurate way. But, honestly, since 9/11 I think airport security is better, so I don't see the need for an improvement.

My Puerto Rican fiance apparently!

He is pretty dark and has been told by Arabs that he looks Egyptian.

Whenever we fly he always gets stopped, then he hands over his US passport with his Latin name and PR birthplace, and he's quickly let go. It seems pretty obvious they thought he was Arab and once they realize he isn't they don't care. Interestingly, "Kathy Caucasian" me never gets stopped - unless I'm with my fiance! I guess they think he's having me carry his bombs. :rolleyes:

We've gotten used to it and laugh about it now, but it is annoying. And as Rudey pointed out, it's inneffective. And I can't imagine what it must be like for people who don't get "waved through" as easily as my fiance.

I am personally all for profiling, especially at airports. Why are you searching my 95 year old grandmother? Can't remember the last time I saw on TV that a 95 year old lady highjacked an airplane-regardless of race. Oh, wait.......grandma's don't do that!

They profile in Israel and have one of the safest airlines in the world considering they are constantly under the threat of terrorism. Seems like there is proof that is works.

www.boortz.com

Actually they do the opposite. Israel has many people of many shades and it would be difficult to profile. And when you question every single person thoroughly before they get on a plane, including where they were bar mitzvahed, and include a staff that served in the military/air force along with guards, commercial passenger planes that deter missiles, and enforced cockpit doors you don't exactly have as much difficulty with plane hijackings anymore.

-Rudey

Well the topic of this thread is 'racial' profiling. So people here are saying that someone's racial background or appearance that is enough to warrant a search of their person and belongings...

Interesting...and scary...

Notice I did not say only racial profiling. I agree with you, we need to do things more like they do. Look a persons country of origin, are they one way without luggage, reinforce cockpits etc. etc., They need to profile based on what we know about terrorists and terrorism in general. This "random" searching thing is just crap. Leave my grandma alone!:mad:

Umm again, they don't do profiling. They search you regardless of race, religion, sex. Your grandma could very well carry a bomb. It's the people you least suspect.

-Rudey

Bingo!

On airplanes and on the borders, I'm not sure what the point is. If terrorists do succeed in pulling off another major attack on the US, I am very doubtful that they will employ the same tactic that they did in the past.

Bingo. If you think about it, racial profiling is a reactive measure. It does not really prevent another attack. If you think strategically, if you use profile, the terrorist will know it. They will also know that an Arabic male with an Arabic sounding name will automatically cause people to be suspicious. If you are the terrorist, what do you do? You choose the least likely individual to be profiled and exploit that weakness.

ETA: In warfare, do you use the same tactic over and over again? No, you twick the tactic around to garner the best result. They might use the plane as a weapon again, but this time it might be a different race or something else. To fight terrorism, you must always use your imagination and try to outwit your opponent.