Why Racial Profiling of Muslims is a Bad Idea

This post is probably indicative of the fact that I have been watching the news a tad bit too much as of late. That, combined with my years of public education in this country studying things like WW2, Communism, McCarthyism, Salem Witch Trials, all really scare me about the course we are on here. Did we learn nothing from any of those things? I thought the whole point of studying history was because history repeats itself. Are the Jim Crow laws from less than 75 years ago really that far of a distant memory? Where are all the civil rights activists now?? Rosa Parks and MLK’s wife both died just recently! It’s amazing what a little bit of scare tactics and media can do to a public. Don’t believe me about media manipulation? Try Ivan Drago and Rocky IV on for size. What was that all about? James Brown tearing it up onstage followed by a fight with that big bad evil commie? Am I the only one that sees any parallels to whats going on?

With that being said, here is why I think racial profiling of Muslims is a bad idea, and I mean reasons other than the fact that I am a non-white Muslim male in between the ages of 16 and 45:

1. Will it mean special seating on the planes too? Everybody move to the back of the bus…
2. It will lead to increased animosity and hostility towards Muslims by isolating them even more. An increase in hate crimes against Muslims would just be the tip of the iceberg..
3. It doesn’t solve anything. People will find surrogates, especially with this new so-called threat of converts.
4. How do you plan on identifying a Muslim? Especially clean shave guys who you can’t tell apart from white guys, black guys, hindus, or women (sorry I couldn’t resist).
5. How do you define Muslim? What about Arab Christians, etc?
6. If these wackos are really ingenious enough to do stuff with Gatorade, are we really supposed to believe another line is going to solve the problem?
7. Treating the symptom not the cause. I personally enjoy the freedoms afforded me to practice my religion here. I just feel that it would be further enhanced if we stopped invading countries, starting wars, and trying to steal people’s oil. If we did that, I think people would leave us alone.
8. How about we start profiling everyone? We should have a line for black people since they all steal, a line for white people since they are all on drugs and serial rapists and killers, another line for mexicans since they’re all illegal, and a line for the Chinese, since, well, they’re a bunch of commies, a line for south americans smuggling drugs, and a line for the French since they’re just plain rude. Can we have a separate line for sex offenders? What about Catholic Priests? I don’t think I would mind being profiled and put in another line, as long as Catholic Priests were banned from being seated near any boys age 3 to 15 on planes, buses, and any other forms of public transport.
9. This story.
10. It’s a slippery slope. If something else happens post-profiling, what is the next step? Do you ban Muslims from flying altogether? If nothing happens, do you scale back and stop the profiling?
11. Waste of resources. Lines are already long enough as it is, are they going to burn extra tax dollars to hire people to do this? Obviously they need well trained professionals for this screening, where are they going to get the money to hire these people? How will it impact travel of others?
12. Gives rise to other forms of crime. If everyone is focused on the 99.999% of your average peaceful Muslim, it gives way for others to get away with things like smuggling.

I am just afraid we are falling prey to a game of mind control by Big Brother. Creating fear amongst the masses is an easy way to influence their decision making, especially in a society inundated with music, movies, television, and other forms of mindless entertainment 24 hours a day.

Check out these videos from the Daily Show:

And, Fear-mongering by CNN: