The atrocities of 9/11 changed my life forever. No longer was I able to travel freely around the world; I was one of “them.” Time and time again, I would be stopped by an authority to go through secondary inspection, have my passport placed under scrutiny, or be pulled into an interrogation room where I would be questioned about dark-skinned men in pictures - did I know them - or my knowledge of bazookas. All because of my name. I appear to be your classic American, fair complexion and blue eyes, yet I would be detained over and over again, sometimes for hours, always ending with apologies from those who had stopped me. I would constantly wonder if the only reason they apologized was because of my European appearance. This is what life
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If law enforcement focuses heavily on racial profiling, they will lighten their efforts in other areas, such as being vigilant when checking luggage for bomb making materials. According to NBC News, twenty one airports were tested and twenty one airports failed to detect bomb making materials when federal investigators successfully carried these materials through airport security (Myers, Airline Screeners Fail Government Bomb Tests, NBCNews.com). This proves that when searching for possible terrorists through racial profiling, authorities become less attentive towards other potential threats. Additionally, those fighting terrorism risk the real possibility of alienating those that could provide helpful information by offending them with racial profiling (MacDonald, Wrong Then, Wrong Now, CivilRights.org). There are those that will argue, that because we are at war, we are permitted to use racial profiling, much like they did when they interred Japanese-Americans during World War II (Tucker, Can We Use Racial Profiling to Stop Terrorists, TheIowaRepublican.com). This argument falls short because we are at war with radical Muslims, which is a religion and not a
If law enforcement focuses heavily on racial profiling, they will lighten their efforts in other areas, such as being vigilant when checking luggage for bomb making materials. According to NBC News, twenty one airports were tested and twenty one airports failed to detect bomb making materials when federal investigators successfully carried these materials through airport security (Myers, Airline Screeners Fail Government Bomb Tests, NBCNews.com). This proves that when searching for possible terrorists through racial profiling, authorities become less attentive towards other potential threats. Additionally, those fighting terrorism risk the real possibility of alienating those that could provide helpful information by offending them with racial profiling (MacDonald, Wrong Then, Wrong Now, CivilRights.org). There are those that will argue, that because we are at war, we are permitted to use racial profiling, much like they did when they interred Japanese-Americans during World War II (Tucker, Can We Use Racial Profiling to Stop Terrorists, TheIowaRepublican.com). This argument falls short because we are at war with radical Muslims, which is a religion and not a