To Profile or Not to Profile

It seems even the vast majority of our brother and sister Americans who come from African descent are beginning to see the realities and necessary evils associated with profiling. This is good. Not only is the issue being looked at with a clearer interpretation of its values, but also with a more subtle understanding of its purpose.

Racial profiling, if not technically speaking a misnomer, is certainly not based on any genetic predisposition to commit crime. Indeed, I have a real problem with the casual use of the “racism” card in American political power plays as not only divisive, but inaccurate.

It is my belief that a great deal of the animosity which arises, on both sides of the issue, is the misuse of words like “racism”, “racist”, and “racial”. All of these words have, as their root, the word “race”. This implies a specific genetic origin. Thus, a racist believes in the inherent inferiority or superiority of an individual or group based solely on their double helix.

Subsequently, if “racial profiling” was based on the belief that individuals of a certain ethnic background were GENETICALLY predisposed to criminal activity, then it would be wrong and indeed, evil.

Profiling is not, however, based on “racial” characteristics (which any American who got better than a D+ in high school biology should be able to understand). It is based on the historical precedents surrounding a certain demographic, and it takes into account a wide variety of factors aside from ethnic background such as gender, culture, and age group.

So, “racial” profiling is not an accurate term – but criminal profiling is.

Once we understand that we can move on to the salient thrust of this rant – namely, why profiling is a necessary evil after 9-11-01 and how arguments against it are specious and do not employ critical thinking.

Peggy Noonan said it best in her latest column:

“The people who are trying to kill us with bombs and biological weapons are not from Canada, Chile, China, India, Ireland, Tanzania, Congo, New Zealand or the island of Jamaica.

They are from the Arab Mideast. They are not Israeli.

They are men, and not women.

They are young men. That is, they are not old men, and they are not children.

So: We know the profile of the bad guys.”

I could not have said it better. It’s not Arabs we should profile - its Arab men, between 18 and 35.

This is a decidedly small minority.

But many people, those of bien pensant, undereducated, or 5^th column opinion, hand-wring or prophesize about this nation becoming another Nazi Germany or Soviet Union if we allow profiling. They raise the specter of 1941 and the treatment of Japanese Americans or 1961 and the discrimination of Black Americans.

These comparisons, as well as others like them, are not only an overreaction, but are also hollow.

The hysteria in '41 committed its greatest travesty of justice in its application. The targeting of CITIZENS for systematic "relocation" was a gross overreaction and a horrible violation of constitutional rights. The discrimination visited upon Blacks in the '60’s was not only greater in scope, but was based on hatred and executed with violence. These reactions are not at all what I or most sane Americans support. What we advocate is common sense.

This does not mean you attack Arab-Americans in the streets. It does not mean you look down your noses at your middle-eastern neighbors.

What it does mean is that if you see an Arab-looking man, between 18 and 35, taking extensive photographs of a power plant, you call the FBI. What it does mean is requiring Arab males to submit to more intensive airport security checks than others. This is not harassment, insensitivity, or intolerance – it is a greater scrutiny that has been earned and deals with the realities in a responsible manner.

What scares those who cringe at the mere thought of profiling, are the aforementioned, unrealistic visions of U.S. relocation camps ala 1941 or discrimination ala 1961 (this could not be farther from the position I and others advocate).

What scares me are Islamic fanatics using our hypersensitive fears of racial intolerance to allow them to operate unrestricted and plot the deaths of my family and friends unopposed.

Advocating greater vigilance is simply logical and practical.

My family works in NYC. I live 20 minutes away (as the crow flies, or the blast-wave/anthrax spore/small pox virus travels). I will not allow my wife or my daughter to die because a few people wrung their hands over the fear of making a handful of Muslim men feel "uncomfortable".

Then there are the panic-laced voices of those who cry, "The minute we discard our own beliefs, we loose the war!"

These voices are soaked in historical ignorance.

The fact is, Lincoln suspended habeas-corpus during the Civil War, and somehow we survived it. Our nation was not "destroyed", the Constitution did not spontaneously burst into flames, and we certainly did not "loose the war".

Likewise, FDR did quite a good bit of Constitutional "trampling" including, but not limited to, the Japanese internments. Somehow, we managed to emerge not only stronger than we were before we had vanquished the Nazis and the Empire of Japan, but also poised for the greatest advancement of worldwide democracy and civil rights in history.

Thus, the reality of the American experience, and its history, rebuffs the fear that we will become “what we despise” if we decide that reality should be dealt with logically as opposed to euphemistically.

Profiling is a proven tool of law enforcement. Profiling has put away dozens of serial killers, rapists, and terrorists (both home-grown and foreign born) and has saved countless lives It is a tried, true, and accepted practice. All we need to do is employ the tiniest bit of logic and restraint.

Michael Kinsley wrote this week in “Slate”, “[W]e're at war with a terror network that just killed 6,000 innocents and has anonymous agents in our country planning more slaughter. Are we really supposed to ignore the one identifiable fact we know about them?"

No, we should not…the situation is extremely simple and painfully obvious.

On the one hand, you have the inconvenience and "discomfort" of a tiny fraction of the population.

This is balanced, on the other hand, with the LIVES of innocent thousands, maybe millions.

No choice at all in my book.