Like many African-Americans, my views on racial profiling have been shaped by personal experience. I’ve felt the punch to the gut that comes when I’m followed by security guards patrolling for shoplifters in department stores. I’ve watched women in supermarkets grab for their handbags when my sons pass by their grocery carts.
We’ve been stopped on the interstate highway several times for “weaving,” as in driving under the influence, though the designated driver, my husband, does not touch alcohol or drugs. I could fill this space and then some with tales of racial profiling episodes over the years that reduced me to tears or caused me to hyperventilate in fear.
In all of those experiences, I was doing normal, everyday things — nothing illegal or crazy. Yet, I was targeted for SWB (shopping while black), DWB (driving while black) and BWB (breathing while black).
You see, racial profiling is not based on reason or reality. And true racial profiling oftentimes runs counter to the goal of protecting the community. That was the case years ago when U.S. customs officials searching for contraband focused on frisking and searching black women. Eventually reason prevailed over prejudice when the General Accountability Office issued a report in 2000 that found that black women were nine times more likely than white women to be X-rayed after a pat-down or frisk search but less than half as likely to be found carrying contraband.
That was pretty ineffective in catching smugglers. Obama’s new security rules that target 14 mostly Muslim countries for extra airport security address reality.
The rules require that all citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria receive a pat-down and an extra examination of their carry-on bags before boarding planes to the United States.
They were initiated in the wake of the failed Dec. 25 bombing by a suspected al-Qaida operative, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian national allegedly smuggled an explosive substance in his underwear onto a U.S. plane headed to Detroit.
I would certainly have a problem with policies requiring pat-downs for all or most Muslim airline passengers. That would be religious profiling because the vast majority of Muslims here and abroad are law-abiding people who deserve the same dignity, respect and courtesy afforded other people. Such a policy would waste money and resources and detract from legitimate security initiatives to thwart terrorists.
But Obama’s new rules don’t target all Muslims, only people of all faiths from countries that have spawned terrorists or are considered to be state sponsors of terrorism. So the policy is narrowly tailored to fit real circumstances, intelligence and facts. That is a key difference between profiling and rational policing.
Many of the 14 nations in question have been inept in screening and checking their people boarding planes to this country. If they aren’t going to do their jobs, then it’s right for the U.S. government to do it for them. That is not racial profiling but common sense.
Alberta Phillips writes for the Austin
(Texas)
American-Statesman. E-mail: aphillips
@
statesman.com.