RACIAL PROFILING?

Victor Bloom MD

Ever since 9/11 and the WTC atrocity, communicating a clear and present danger--- that we are targets of murderous hostility, it has been essential to beef up our internal security measures. We naturally want to prevent such happenings again, if at all possible. In this quest for security, as a response to terror, many agents of Al Qaeda have been arrested and/or 'detained.' This natural process has been called into question by civil rights observers and other alarmists. They say that we are giving up the very rights we are fighting to maintain.

As a country which prides itself in personal freedom, freedom from governmental scrutiny, these concerns are legitimate. A balance must be struck between guarding the national security and securing the civil rights of our citizens. Since the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, at this point the needs of self-defense outweigh the need of every individual within our national borders to not be questioned or detained. A certain amount of detaining and questioning is appropriate to the times.

We have been told that members of Al Qaeda have been detained, along with others with false papers. Their names have not been released and many have refused legal counsel. Detention and questioning is appropriate in war-time. We are at war, not with any particular country, but with a criminal network which is supported multi-nationally by our enemies. This fact justifies war-time measures. Part of our secrecy is to confuse and disrupt the terrorist network, to gain information from the detainees, and to worry those who are their links in the network. We don't want them to know what we know. If there are a few detainees who should not have been detained, it is unfortunate, but such are the side-effects of war. In war, there is an enemy, and the enemy must be recognized if we are to be able to defeat them.

In this strange new war of shadowy agents from the Middle East, coming to this country legally and illegally, posing as normal, peace-loving immigrants, we are at a distinct disadvantage. We have an open and free society, too open, perhaps, which is thereby extraordinarily vulnerable to espionage and sabotage. It is obvious that for the present war situation some freedoms will have to be put on the back burner until after the war is over, which is to say when terrorist acts cease.

So who will we detain and question? Senior citizens over 80? Probably not. Nordic, Scandinavian types? Probably not. Red-headed freckled types with green eyes? Probably not. We have to be rational and efficient, logical and statistical. From what source is it mostly likely to find a person connected with Al Qaeda? All our information tells us that he (mostly he) is from the Middle East and looks like an Arab. He has an Arab name. He is in his twenties, thirties or forties. He has multiple passports and false identification. He may be in this country illegally. He buys one-way tickets and pays cash or uses a debit card. If he looks like the faces we have seen on television, he is wanted and has a haunted, hunted look. Furthermore, chances are he's not smiling or easy-going or light-hearted. Chances are he looks angry, depressed or scared. I can see why our government security people would want to question and possibly detain these people. For every one detained, there are probably hundreds questioned and searched. Should we not question and search? If we question him, does that mean we accuse or convict him? Certainly not! Is he upset or inconvenienced some? Small price to pay for national security, to prevent another disaster.

Some claim that this process is 'racial-profiling,' and harks back to abuses of the past. This questioning of Middle East men is not racial profiling. Arabic or Middle East is not a race, but there are visible physical characteristics of this sub-group, such as dark skin and a thick black mustache. That's the way the men generally look who come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Iraq or Iran, for example. They look like Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. If we search and question some of these people, there is no harm done. If we find one terrorist agent out of a thousand being searched and questioned at airports or other vital places, that is good work and worth doing.

As a country we are sorry about our history of racial injustice and fully intend to do better. We understand that some people are understandably sensitive to being 'hassled' because they truly have been wrongly hassled in the past. But that was then and this is now. Being searched and questioned is something we must all endure from time to time if we fly or have to enter a federal building or now, a skyscraper. It's just safety-first. Of course we are over-doing it initially, because we have been terrorized. We are not about to do any damage or hijack a flight with a nail clipper. Eventually, the silliness and excess will pass, but in the meantime I think we all agree that people who are in this country illegally have limited civil rights; they are not citizens.

Every country has the right to protect itself by its immigration practices at border crossings, and we are just beginning to tighten up and be more strict. Despite a few inconveniences and ruffled feelings, we will all be better off for it. There's not much chance the U.S.A. is going to become a fascist dictatorship.

Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the Wayne County Medical Society. He welcomes comments at his email address--- vbloom@comcast.net.