DO WE NEED RACIAL PROFILING?
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
When the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, the nation leapt to
the conclusion that Middle Eastern terrorists were responsible for that
bombing. Americans of Arab descent, as well as Arab immigrants, were stopped
and hassled at airports, beaten on the streets, and given a generally hard
time. When the dust settled, we found that it was a garden-variety white
boy, Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the loss of 168 lives in
Oklahoma City.
This time around, we have evidence of some Middle Eastern involvement in
the attacks on the World Trade Center twin towers and on the Pentagon. We
have names, photos, and sketches, and so far it appears that all of those
involved in hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings were Middle
Eastern, though not necessarily from Afghanistan. But when I learned that
one of the hijackers actually had a ramp pass to go to restricted areas of
the airport, I wondered if a Middle Eastern person, or someone else, had
provided him with that ramp pass. While we are pointing our fingers at
people of Arab descent, ought we not wonder if there are elements of an
“inside job” involved here?
Too many people are resigning themselves to the inevitability of racial
profiling. Because Arabs were involved in the hijacking, some say, it is
reasonable to suspect them in other terrorist activities. Should any Arab,
then, even an Arab American who has been in this country for generations,
expect to be stopped and hassled? Should they expect to be beaten or shot?
In Mesa, Arizona, a white gunman shot the Sikh owner of a Chevron station,
describing himself as a “patriot” when he was apprehended. The thousands of
Sikhs in the United States now fear for their lives, especially because their
turbans resemble those worn by members of the Taliban.
While we are racially profiling Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs and people from
Afghanistan, shouldn’t we also consider profiling those “angry white males”
like the Timothy McVeighs of the world who also seem to harbor hate against
the United States. There may not have been any white men hijacking planes,
but it is a safe bet that the terrorists had help. It’s a lot easier,
though, to point fingers at people who are different than it is to take a
careful look at the majority. Still, it seems to me that we miss an awful
lot when we reduce our search for terrorists to a search for Middle
Easterners.
Now, the Justice Department has expanded powers that would allow legal
immigrants to be detained indefinitely during a national emergency. More
than 75 people have been arrested in connection with the attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, With the Justice Department having expanded
powers, and with the prime suspects for the bombings being Arab immigrants,
it is likely that most of those arrested and detained are of Middle Eastern
descent. The Justice Department may want to cast their net wider, getting
past the laziness of racial profiling to look for real terrorists.
We can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of World War II when thousands of
Japanese Americans were interred because we felt we couldn’t be assured of
their loyalty after Pearl Harbor. Nor can we afford to repeat the Palmer
Raids in which 10,000 people in 33 cities were rounded up with hardly any due
process after anarchists attacked eight cities in the United States. More
than two hundred resident aliens were deported, but thousands of others were
simply held (and in some cases tortured) because they were suspected of being
involved in the attacks.
Our civil liberties should not be fully suspended during this state of
emergency. Further, people of color and immigrants should not be the ones to
shoulder the burden of this suspension. If we think back to the Oklahoma City
bombing, we’ll be reminded that all of the terrorists are not Middle
Easterners, that some home-grown white men are as capable of horrible
bombings as Osama bin Ladin’s followers are. If we want to find the
culprits in these horrible bombings, we need a thorough investigation that
resists the temptation to use Arab status as a reason to detain or
interrogate someone. Instead of fanning the flames of already-rampant
xenophobia in the United States, the Justice Department needs to make it
clear that because all the suspects aren’t Arabs, racial profiling is a
limited and flawed way of trying to find out who is responsible for the
bombings.