53 of 100 DOCUMENTS The Boston Herald November 7, 2001 Wednesday ALL EDITIONS Op-Ed; Profiling terrorists not the answer BYLINE: By Deborah RAMIREZ and Jack LEVIN SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 025 LENGTH: 858 words Prior to the attack on America, racial profiling was considered a blatant civil rights violation. The practice of singling out racial or ethnic groups during traffic stops or at border checks was condemned by courts, civil rights groups and the American public. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack, however, thousands of Arabs and Muslims complain that they are being unfairly scrutinized and harassed. A practice that was once considered intolerable is now accepted as a necessary tactic in the war on terrorism. Profiling Arabs and Muslims represents a critical test for our multiracial, multicultural democracy. Must we sacrifice individual rights in order to avoid another terrorist hijacking? Will we adhere to the principle that people are to be judged by their acts, not by the group into which they were born? Or will we allow our fears to balkanize America. From our experiences with racial profiling in the war against drugs, we have learned a number of important lessons that can be applied now in fighting terrorism. First, using race or ethnicity as a proxy for involvement in crime is both too broad and too narrow to be effective. Targeting people who appear to be Arabic is too broad because most of the millions of Arabs in the United States are loyal citizens, not dangerous terrorists. The profile is too narrow because there is no such thing as a "Middle Eastern" look. Arabs come in all colors and sizes. Egyptians can be lightskinned and blue-eyed. Indeed, numerous Americans who trace their heritage to Mexico, Spain, Greece, India and Italy share a "Middle-Eastern" look. Second, criminals frequently modify their profile. During the war on drugs, any drug courier profile the police created quickly became ineffective because drug distributors responded with an "anti-profile." If, for example, the police targeted blacks in out-of-state rental cars, the traffickers would begin to use female couriers in vans. With "people of Arab appearance," targeted, it is highly unlikely a sophisticated terrorist group will again use Arabs in airports. Third, by focusing on a particular group, we may overlook the criminal behavior of individuals whose appearance may not arouse our suspicion. If we target blacks and Latinos in drug stops, we may miss the many white drug dealers. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack, we should fear that our narrow focus on "Arabs" will blind us to the presence of terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber or the white passenger who recently attempted to slit the throat of a Greyhound bus driver. Fourth, profiling is widely employed by ordinary citizens in a destructive manner. Perhaps taking their cue from law enforcement, white cab drivers don't always stop to pick up black men. Blacks and Latinos are frequently followed through stores by security guards who see them as potential shoplifters. In a similar way, angry Americans have recently attacked dozens of individuals across the country, based only on the fact that their victim spoke with a foreign accent and had dark skin. Since Sept. 11, the FBI has investigated more than 40 anti-Arab and anti-Islamic hate crimes across the country. In addition, there have been more than 300 reports of harassment and abuse filed with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Finally, when criminals share racial and ethnic traits with large urban populations, it is better to work with the community than against it. When the police formed partnerships and collaborated with black and Latino residents in the war on drugs, they received information, intelligence and support that enabled them more effectively to target and prosecute the criminals within those communities. Perhaps instead of alienating and targeting the entire Arab-American population, we should cooperate with them to identify those members of their community who may be engaging in terrorist activities. Arab-Americans may be our best guides to what constitutes suspicious activity within the Arab population. So instead of trying to ferret out Arab-looking folks, perhaps we should be focused on race-neutral responses that might improve our ability to detect terrorism from any source and by any person. Perhaps every passenger in an airport should be searched by wands. Or, maybe we should select passengers to interrogate on a random basis. Perhaps all of us should be made to carry a national identification card. Rather than settling for the false sense of security that racial profiling may provide, we should insist that the FBI and the CIA obtain better intelligence about potential terrorists and planned criminal activity in the United States and that all of us participate in the process of creating better security systems in our airports, bus terminals, public buildings and urban skyscrapers. Only when we address these fundamental security problems will we truly be prepared to protect the homeland against terrorist attacks. Deborah Ramirez is professor of law and co-director of the Institute on Race and Justice. Jack Levin is director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict, both at Northeastern University. LOAD-DATE: November 07, 2001 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH Copyright 2001 Boston Herald Inc. |