Grandma, what a great profile you have!

A few short words on profiling. It's really easy to say as a white American that racial profiling is a good idea in some instances. It's really easy because white Americans have no fear of being profiled. Imagine, however, someone stopping you in an airport or in traffic because you were a member of an ethnic group of which several members have performed or are performing serial criminal acts. Would you not resent the implication that just because you're a member of that ethnic group, you have some part in those activities?

Let's also be clear about something. There's racial profiling, then there's criminal profiling. There's a big difference between these. One is a valid and effective law enforcement tool. The other is manipulating statistics to support prejudice and bigotry.

I mentioned in the previous post about the Belgian woman who suicide bombed troops in Iraq, but let's not forget Timothy McVeigh. He was a home-grown terrorist, right here in the good old US of A. And how about the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski? Did they have to carpet bomb the mountains of some Middle Eastern country to find him? No, he was hiding in a cabin in the mountains of Montana.

I understand that we do have to be realistic. There are a considerable amount of organized terrorist attacks committed by extremist Muslims, but to discount the possibility of a western terrorist out of hand is not just dangerous; it's foolish. I certainly think there needs to be more brains in our security, and I don't believe we should be cowed by the PC police either, but I do believe that there's a lot of sentiment in this that promotes the idea of racial profiling being a good way to keep us safe. That kind of thinking is insidious. It's racism that benignly slips in as a warm fuzzy of security for the greater good. It ends with the average citizen feeling vindicated for treating foreigners like criminals, especially if they have a beard and are wearing a turban.