Let's Play Profiling!

Can you spot the terrorists? Spot all four and win a romantic weekend for two in Detroit, Michigan! (Answers at the end)

Every time there's a terr'ist incident or near-miss, we crank up the old racial profiling jalopy and, as usual, find it gets us nowhere.

On one side, there are profiling fans like New York Republican Pete King defending the practice and, on the other end of the reality spectrum, those who argue profiling is as pointless as it is offensive.

I'm sure people like King are fond of negative profiling of minorities because it's a neat way of officially validating white privilege by default. And I'd bet those people probably smile to themselves every time a non-white passenger is body searched while they stroll through security unmolested because, in their world, that's the natural order of things. The best way to preserve white privilege has always been the inconveniencing of non-white races and the gradual erosion of their human rights and dignity. Racial profiling, from the perspective of both proponent and victim, is just another way to send the message: we are in charge.

King might say "100% of the Islamic terrorists who are coming against us are Muslims," and "if you were going after the Mafia, you'd go into Italian communities." At gut level, this might resemble logic. But it ain't.

Muslim is not a color. The ethnic groups within the planet's 1.2 billion Muslims run the gamut from blue-eyed Kurds, East Asians, North Africans, Arabs all the way on to black-as-Flavor-Flav West Africans like the failed Detroit bomber. And there's no uniform for the 'opposing army' in the war on terror either. So even if you can stomach profiling, how the hell is it supposed to be implemented?

The absurdity of trying to spot 'Muslims' leads to weird scenes. I once saw a Hispanic family held up at Sacramento airport soon after 9-11. Presumably they fit the profile for provincial TSA guys who hadn't seen too many actual Arabs. But how did that contribute to public safety?

And there are the absurdities involved in self-consciously not profiling as well. Anyone who travels also sees dumb sh*t like old white ladies being pulled out of lines to be patted down for explosives like bin Laden had started recruiting suicide bombers at suburban bingo halls. Again, how does that contribute to public safety?

All round, the issue of profiling is a stupid. Either embracing it or denying it leads to nothing but a big logical dead end. So let's quit discussing the whole worthless issue and move on. Let's just tighten the rules we do have and dump those who failed to carry them out properly. And, please, let's quit heeding wingnuts who capitalize on the fear of terrorism as cynically and as self-servingly as al Qaeda does itself.


Who's a terrorist? Answers clock-wise from top left: Fisty rapper Chris Brown (nope); Vintage IRA terrorist Joe Cahill (yup); Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan (nope); Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (yup); Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai (nope); Alleged Australian al Qaeda operative Matthew Stewart (yup); Bobby Brown (kinda); Samira Ahmed Jassim, Recruiter of Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq (yup).