Racial Profiling

The recent incidence in Cambridge, MA, involving professor Gates, who is black, and Cambridge Police brought to the forefront the issue of racial profiling. The hotly debated point was whether Gates was treated differently than a white person would have been under the circumstances. After all, that is what racial profiling means.

In many situations, it is difficult to figure out if racial profiling did take place. This being one of them, unless you have proof that policeman had treated a white person differently under similar circumstances. Hence the uproar and differing views on whether professor Gates had a valid point.

There are other situations where it is clear that racial profiling did not take place and it is all in the mind of the person claiming that it did.

I am reminded of an incidence in Heathrow Airport, where a person of South Asian origin was screaming at the woman at a security check. The reason? He wanted to get into a short line reserved for Business Class passengers, and he was flying coach. At one point he got so angry that he told his kid that, “don’t go near them….they will fry you because of your skin color.” The security guard maintained her composure but I felt like kicking him for his imagined sense of profiling, not to mention his shameful behavior.

Finally, there are situations where there is little doubt that racial profiling did take place and I can say that from personal experience.

Once we were driving from San Diego to Los Angeles and we had to drive through Camp Pendleton. A guard was standing in the middle of the road allowing cars to go by. Among the stream of cars allowed to go by, he spotted us and pulled us aside for further investigation. We all felt humiliated and angry for being so overtly profiled.

The other incidence (or a set of incidences) was recently while on train crossing various borders in Europe. At each crossing, our passports were carefully examined, sometimes with a magnifying glass. Our data were entered on laptop and also verbally transmitted to some headquarters. Again, we felt that we were being clearly profiled.

However, there was a reason in both cases for the guards treating us differently.

The purpose for Camp Pendleton check point was to catch illegal immigrants from Mexico, and I looked like a Mexican. In the second situation, the reason for profiling was perhaps our son who, with his beard and piercing eyes, would be completely at home in a Taliban majlis.

If these guards are asked to find a needle in the haystack, would they examine objects that look like needle or those that resemble hay?

So, my fellow persons of color, think about what happened and why did it happen before you jump to a conclusion that you were wronged by a white person.

September 2009