It's been a while since I've been racially profiled - I wasn't sure why but my wedding and subsequent honeymoon demonstrated to me that it wasn't because incidents of profiling have gone down, but rather my exposure to events where it would occur - namely because I've been holed up in grad school.
ON MY WEDDING DAY
The wedding took place at a hotel in the financial area of Jersey City, NJ - one of the areas that has been under heightened terror alert since they found out Al Queda was scoping out the buildings four years ago. The weekend of the wedding, the police set up a vehicular checkpoint on the access street to the hotel - every car was stopped by the police in or out of the street.
For the most part, it was pretty straightforward. You'd stop, tell the police officer that you were heading to the hotel, and they'd wave you through. The morning of the wedding, however, was a totally different story. I was with my best friend, a practicing Sikh (meaning that he wears a turban, among other things, in keeping with his faith) as we drove up to the hotel after running a few last minute errands. We were stopped by the police officer as usual and we explained we were on the way to the hotel. Instead of waving us through, however, he asked us to open up the car to be searched. Eyeing a shopping bag, he first questioned us about what was in the bag, then before we could answer, he seized the bag and looked through it without our permission. While the search of the car is no big deal, the search of the bag without cause is certainly a violation of our civil rights - as confirmed by several civil rights lawyer friends who attended the wedding. There was no cause for search - there was nothing about our demeanor - that would have led a police officer to conclude that we were likely to be terrorists, unless you believe that having olive skin, facial hair, and a turban is cause for suspicion. I was (and still am) pissed about this but I had to calm down and put it aside for the wedding. I plan to file a complaint with the J.C. police department.
RETURNING FROM THE HONEYMOON
Second incident happened yesterday when we were returning from our honeymoon. I haven't flown internationally since well before 9/11 but I had mistakenly assumed that the practice of "random" searches had mirrored what occured in the U.S. That is, initially, the searches weren't random but based on profiles - namely anyone percieved to be Arab. After intense lobbying by Arab and South Asian community groups, Norm Mineta agreed (based on his own experience as a Japanese American during WWII) that searches have to be truly random to be fair and just and saw to it that the TSA adopted race-neutral search policies. This hasn't been adopted internationally. After going through the standard metal detector screening before the entry to the gates, all passengers were stopped before entering the boarding gates and asked those stupid questions about whether we had packed our own luggage and whether someone had given us anything to take onboard.
But that's not the big deal. What pissed me off was before we got onto the plane, we were stopped again by security agents conducting a "random" search. I had to hand over my passport and sign a form consenting to the random search. I was then subjected to a wand search and pat-down of my body, I had to remove my shoes for inspection, and my bags were opened and manually inspected. Out of 100+ passengers on the 767, there were only 5 others before me that had also been searched whose names appeared on the same list that I had to sign. I noted that four of the six, including myself, had Indian surnames. The very next person that was searched was an African Muslim. Not too "random," I'd say.
But wait, friends, that's not all. Apparently, the race-neutral policies instituted in the TSA weren't transported over to US Customs when they got consolidated together under the Dept. of Homeland Security. As we were waiting in line to get through to the passport booth, a customs agent approached us and gruffly asked for our passports. He hadn't asked any of the other white passengers that were ahead of us. While I raised an eyebrow, I didn't become irate until I noticed that he asked the Indian family behind us, and then another Indian couple several groups behind them. That's not "random" either.
I can't believe that within a week, I've been racially profiled three times in two different countries. That means this bullshit is much more widespread and more commonplace than we (certainly me) realize. At some point, I will pull out my policy analysis skillset and show how racial profiling is actually a poor criminal detection device and actually wastes valuable law enforcement resources but for now I'll take the position on principle - what happened to innocent until proven guilty? what happened to the right against unreasonable searches and probable cause?
Yeah, yeah. I know you freepers will just think I hate America. Blow me - your freedom is being paid on my back.
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