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another view on racial profiling
Since I only get the digest form of the list instead of individual e-mails,
I get the luxury of reading all the posts at once. Because of that and the
fact that I like lurking, it is hard for me to respond to any post in a
timely manner. Also, I'm not into beating dead horses. However, I have
been personally offended by many of WS's posts on racial profiling, and
being a person of color (biracial - black/white of Greek descent), I have to
respond to what's been said, giving my point of view and examples of my own
experience.
I have been the "victim" (and I use that word loosely because I hate it when
minorities always make themselves out to be the victim) of racial profiling
many times in my life. Maybe it's just the part of the country I live in,
but I can walk into a store by myself, even today, and security will find
and lock onto me. (If I'm with other white people, it doesn't happen; if
I'm with other black people, I'm very conscious of any move I make so that I
don't draw any more attention to myself than necessary.) Other than other
people's prejudiced views of my skin color and dreadlocs, there is
absolutely nothing about my appearance that would suggest that I'm a thief.
I've never stolen anything in my life (except for my ex-fiance's soul which
I did while he was sleeping, but I gave it back to him with interest), yet
more than once I've been directly approached by sales clerks wanting to know
what I did with the merchandise I had in my hand, when I just merely changed
my mind and put the merchandise back. I've been accused of trying to sell
back stolen cds to a used music store, probably because the music I wanted
to sell (some CCM, some alternative) didn't match up with what music the
clerk thought I should have (perhaps some rap?). This past spring I was
pulled over for speeding, which I was doing, and found out that my id,
including my SSN and date of birth, had been stolen by someone with similar
features to myself and had used it while committing a felony. I was
handcuffed and taken to jail, and despite available evidence proving that I
was not the same person who had committed the crime, I almost got my ass
hauled off to the St. Louis County jail. That would have been eye-opening
for me, who is really quite ignorant of such things. Anyway, I believe that
because of my race and appearance, the police did not believe me initially
when I insisted that they had the wrong person, and their disbelief made the
whole process much longer. One of the cops actually laughed when I told him
I worked at the university library, a job that I had just started on that
day and lost because of this particular incident.
My point in saying all this is that from my own experience I know just how
wrong it is to make assumptions based on a person's race. I really hope
that I'm preaching to the choir here, but I cannot buy the notion that
because a person of Arabic descent is on an airplane or knows someone who
knows someone who knows one of the hijackers that he should automatically be
suspect. I've had to do some soul searching on this. Perhaps if I were on
a plane with a few people of Arabic descent also on board these days, I'd be
nervous, no doubt. But I also have to look into my own heart, and mirror,
and realize if not for my hair and/or if I wore a scarf on my head, I might
likely find myself a target of this latest trend in racism. But even if I
were white, especially here in 2001, despite the carnage that took place in
New York and Washington and the fact the people who did these particular
acts were Arabic, I cannot in good conscience say that racial profiling is
an appropriate or effective tool in catching the people responsible. The
sales clerks who have been busy tracking me have probably missed a lot of
white or asian or hispanic people robbing them blind. As someone pointed
out on this list a couple of days ago, not all Muslims are Arabic. I know
of a white Muslim family. Also, my sister's ex, who is white, was seriously
considering converting to Islam, and knowing him, I'm sure he was jumping up
and down with glee the day of the attacks, probably wishing he could have
helped take part. (Thankfully, he is currently serving a life term in a
maximum security prison for some other stuff.) All I'm saying is that if
you have evidence that a person is guilty of a crime, pull that person in,
question him or her, do whatever you have to do until you're blue in the
face, but we cannot start (or continue) singling out people solely because
of the way they look. I am the "poster child" for libertarianism, and if we
start interfering with people in this manner, it's just going to make what
issues we've had with freedoms since September 11 worse. (Most of those
issues, such as checking ids or searching my luggage, at this point I don't
have a problem with, btw, other than I'm saddened that it's come to this.
And it's okay that they are doing it to everyone, but if it were one racial
group, of course it'd be wrong.)
Okay... thanks for letting me vent. I love this list even though I have
lurked for most of the five years I've been here. It is truly unlike any
list that I'm on. I love reading about not only OTR's music, but also what
books people are reading, other music you're into, religion, politics,
poetry, differing viewpoints on current events. However, when people just
myopically post to the list viewpoints based on ignorance and prejudice, I
feel that I have to speak up, and in fact wish that I would have spoken
sooner. I will now go back to lurking, peacefully I hope. :)
Gail
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