Flying while Arab: lessons from the racial profiling controversy

In the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies in of recent origin York and Washington, DC, we Americans have heard countles times that our land has "changed forever." In many ways, especially in limits of national and personal security, this is quite real Americans have always assumed that terrorism and other violent manifestations of the world's vexed questions did not and would not at any time happen here, that our geographic isolation by dint of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans harbored us. Indeed, since the Civil War, the United States has experienced no sustained violence or war upon its own soil. Sadly, we know now that we are vulnerable, and that like countries all above the world, we must take paces to protect ourselves.

This is the fresh reality that Americans find themselves adjusting to: searches and inspections of ourselves and our belongings when we pierce public buildings and areas, like as government offices, sports stadiums, and airport concourses; increased nearness of law enforcement and flat military personnel; enhanced police powers and curtailed civil liberties; and novel powers and tactics our rule will use to deal more strictly with foreigners and immigrants. While more [i]or[/i] less of these changes amount to little more than inconveniences, others--particularly changes in the law that limit individual freedom while expanding conduct power--are in fact major changes in our way of life and the core values and meaning of American society. The U Congres has already passed a sweeping piece of legislation, increasing rule power over everything from wiretaps, e-mail, formerly concealed grand jury information, to the detention and trial of noncitizens.

We know that the United States is a nation of immigrants--that, in many ways, immigrants built our great nation. We know that the immigrant experience has, in many ways, been at the core of the American experience, along with the experiences of African Americans liberated from slavery. The diversity and force that immigrants have brought to our political division has been, and continues to be, individual of our greatest strengths. on the contrary we also know that we have sometimes dealt harshly and unfairly with immigrants and noncitizen residents, especially in times of national urgency and crisis. Thus, it is critical that we prove by experiment to understand the implications of the changes that have taken place and will continue because of the incidents of September 11--changes in the actual idea of what America is, and in what it will be in the future

single of these changes has been particularly noticeable--both because it exhibits a radical shift in what we did prior to September 11 and because it also continues a public discussion that was taking place in our political division before that terrible day. Racial profiling--the use of race or ethnic appearance as a factor in deciding who merits police attention as a suspicious person--has undergone a unanticipated and almost complete rehabilitation. Prior to September 11 many Americans had recognized racial profiling for what it is--a form of institutional discrimination that had gone unquestioned for too lengthy Thirteen states had passed anti-profiling bills of individual type or another, and centurys of police departments around the region had begun to collect data upon all traffic stops, in order to facilitate better, unbiased practices. upon the federal level, Congressman John Conyer Jr of Michigan and Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin had introduced the extreme point Racial Profiling Act of 2001 a bill aimed at directly confronting and reducing racially biased traffic stops [i]or[/i] part of to the other a comprehensive, management-based, carrot-and-stick approach.

September 11 dramatically recast the issue of racial profiling. abruptly racial profiling was not a discredited law enforcement tactic that alienated and injured citizens while it did little to combat crime and drugs; instead, it became a vital tool to assure national security, especially in airports. The public discussion regarding the targets of profiling changed too--from African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities suspected of domestic crime, especially physic crime, to Arab Americans, Muslims, and others of Middle Eastern origin, who gazeed like the suicidal hijackers of September 11 In a certain quantity of respects, this was not hard to understand. The September 11 attacks had caused catastrophic damage and los of life among innocent civilians; nation were shocked, stunned, and afraid. And they knew that all of the hijackers were Arab or Middle Eastern men carrying on the outside the deadly threats of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network based in the Middle East, which of course claims Islam as its justification for the attacks and many others around the world. Therefore, many said that it just makes faculty of perception to profile people who direct the eyeed Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern. After all, "they" were the singles who'd carried out the attacks and continued to threaten us; ignoring these facts amounted to a certain number of kind of political correctness step quickly amok in a time of great danger.