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Many people, even those who object to racial profiling, say the threat to the nation justifies special measures.
©New York Times
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 23, 2001
SEATTLE -- Ron Arnold understands racial profiling. "I'm a black American, and I've been racially profiled all my life," said Arnold, a 43-year-old security officer here, "and it's wrong."
But Arnold admits that he is engaging in some racial profiling himself these days, casting a wary eye on men who look to be of Middle Eastern descent. If he saw a small knot of such men boarding a plane on which he was about to fly, he said: "Yes, I'd be aware of them. I'd be nervous. It sickens me that I feel that way, but it's the real world."
Adrian Estala, 27, a risk-management consultant in Houston who is Hispanic, is struggling with the same emotions. Estala is "absolutely against" racial profiling, he said, but asked the same question about sharing a flight with Arab-looking men, he said he would be anxious.
"Absolutely I have to be honest," Estala said. "Yes, it would make me second-guess. Anybody that says no, they're a better man than I am, or a better woman. I would feel nervous. I mean, who wouldn't?"
Such sentiments seem to have been in play on Monday when a Pakistani man was ordered off a Delta Airlines flight from San Antonio, Texas, while bound for his brother's wedding in Pakistan, and again Thursday in Minneapolis when three Middle Eastern-looking men were denied permission to board a Northwest Airlines flight to their homes in Salt Lake City, and again Friday in Tampa when an American citizen born in Egypt was told the pilot wouldn't allow him to board a United Airlines flight to Cairo.
While expressing regret at what they portrayed as the need for more detailed interrogations of people of Arab background, many people said the subjects of such extra attention should understand and accept the reasons for it.
"They shouldn't be offended," said Leslie Brenaman, a retired Boeing graphics designer, who is white. "They shouldn't take it personally after what's happened."
But Nadeem Salem, head of the Association of Arab Americans in Toledo, Ohio, said such views are offensive.
"Think what it really means," said Salem, a U.S.-born citizen. "People's civil liberties are being ... compromised. That's not what this country is all about."
Wali Khairzada, owner of Kabul Afghan Cuisine, a Seattle restaurant, said he felt heartsick about a decision he made the other day: not to take his father-in-law, who is German, to the airport for his flight home.
"It makes me feel sad, but I feel I should stay away," said Khairzada, who was born in Afghanistan, received asylum in this country after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, and became an American citizen in 1986. "I would be checked there far more thoroughly than the average person."
On the other hand, he added, he had been buoyed by racial profiling of a different sort in recent days. "So many people have come in to the restaurant to offer some support," Khairzada said. "I'm amazed, I'm grateful, I'm flabbergasted."
In interviews around the country, many people expressed revulsion at the spate of attacks on Muslims, as well as on Hindus and Sikhs, and the vandalism at mosques. Those interviewed spoke of national ideals of colorblindness -- but in nearly the same breath they said that for the sake of national safety, the police should single out Arab-looking men for questioning.
Kathy Komlance, 43, who was wearing an American flag T-shirt as she worked at a taffy stand at the Mid-South Fair in Memphis, Tenn., said she favored checking their credentials. "I think a person who is Arab should be questioned if they get on a bus or plane or go in a government building," Komlance said. "You don't want to be afraid of Arabs. ... But how do you differentiate and figure out which one is the bad one from those who love freedom and our country?"
A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed that Americans were supporting special measures intended for those of Arab descent. In the survey, 58 percent backed more intensive security checks for Arabs, including those who are U.S. citizens; 49 percent favored special identification cards for such people; and 32 percent backed "special surveillance" for them.