both President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have publicly condemned hate crimes against those who appear to be Arab, the simultaneous hyperactivity surrounding national security has sanctioned racial profiling. Passengers who appear "Arab looking," which has included those who are South Asian and Latino, have been asked to leave airplanes because both fellow passengers and crew members refuse to fly with them. Sikh men have been denied the right to even board aircraft because they refuse to fly without their turbans, something Harmeet Dhillon, co-founder of the Sikh Communications Council, equates with asking a woman to fly without her skirt. "It’s humiliating and degrading," she says. The profile of a terrorist is a man in his twenties or thirties who comes from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Pakistan. He probably lives in one of six states–Texas, New Jersey, California, New York, Michigan, or Florida. And he is likely to have engaged in some sort of suspicious activity, such as taking flying lessons, traveling, or getting a driver’s license. Meeting one of these profiles is enough to get you questioned. Meeting all three is likely to land you in jail. Darrell Issa fit the profile. He is Arab American, he is from California, and he was traveling to Saudi Arabia. The crew of his flight refused to allow him to board the plane. Representative Robert Walker (D-Florida) intervened on Issa’s behalf, but to no avail. Darrell Issa is a United States Congressman."Racial profiling hadn’t been an issue for me before September 11," says Dhillon. "Now I’m confident in saying that racial profiling of Sikhs is happening in every airport across the country." The Sikh Coalition has documented 173 cases of racial profiling or incidents against Sikhs since September 11.The Profiling ParadoxThe debates surrounding both the effectiveness and the moral sanctioning of racial profiling have created some dissonance for ...
