…the racial profiling rant…

Following the latest ‘Suaad Hagi Mohamud‘ fiasco that our beauraucrats have landed themselves into – and with all due respect to the woman and the horrible things she had to endure just because of some incompetent fools out there – I chuckle when everyone in the hierarchy vehemently denies any form of racial profiling practised in our part of the world - a part of the world that prides itself as being a beacon for immigrants and one that celebrates its rich cultural mosaic at every opportunity it gets…

I will not speculate on Suaad Mohamud’s case but will rant on this practice based on my OWN very recent experience with the ‘profiling‘ that we are told (time and again) doesn’t exist…

I just got back from a trip to the Riviera Maya in Mexico with my wife and 12-year-old child…throughout the trip – I was miraculously picked, for a ‘random‘ check of my person and belongings…my bags were opened – and my wife’s handbag went through the screening machine twice at one point – I was almost tempted to ask my wife to open the purse and empty its contents on the table and to ask the screener if they wanted us to remove all the sheets of kleenex in her little travel pack just in case – but held back out of respect for my wife’s privacy and for the sake of my 12-year-old…

All this would not have been such a big deal if it was truly ‘random‘ – but, of the 189 other passengers on the same flight, only we had the honor of being picked ‘randomly‘ for thorough checking…it was amazing how the ‘random‘ checking magically stopped after they had put me through a couple of different screening machines…I did not see any of my other fellow passengers get picked for that ‘random‘ check – they waltzed in to the screening area, left their stuff on the conveyor, waltzed through the main scanner, picked up their belongings, and merrily made their way to the gate…every single one of them…

At one of our ‘random‘ baggage checks, I commented to my wife…asking her to remind me to call the lottery office the next time I purchase a ticket and let them know my ticket number and full name – I may actually have a stab at a big-ticket price if they had my Arab name in advance…after all, every time someone saw my name, they automatically picked me for a ‘random‘ something…

My daughter also noticed this odd coincidence and asked me as to why no one else was made to open their bags - and I didn’t really want to tell her that it was because of our Arab/Persian names…I was the only passenger that had to step aside each time and walk through an array of additional machines while my daughter watched…it would only have been fair to pick more than one ‘random‘ passenger on that flight – and a different one each time…don’t you think???…

My trip to Kyrgyz a few years earlier was no different – at Toronto Pearson International and London Heathrow – both ways – I had to remove my shoes, socks, belt, empty my pockets, walk through the first scanner, get scanned by hand (even though I heard no beeps or sirens walking through the first scanner), then step into the machine where I had to stand still while they blew spurts of air all over my body (checking for chemicals, I think), then walk over to where my laptop back-pack and carry-on bag were waiting to be inspected by hand – and they kept telling me ‘…random check, sir…’ each time – both ways – really???

And all this as a Canadian Citizen and Passport holder with not even a parking infraction on record – heaven forbid if I was a citizen of a ‘lesser‘ nation…I would probably have to spend a night in some holding cell at each stop along the way (…just random checking, sir…) while they slit my skin open and scanned the insides of my body for whatever it is that they are always looking for in people (with Arab names) sporting natural tans…

Still think racial (or ethnic) profiling is a myth?

• A 2005 study of police statistics in Kingston, Ontario – published in May of that year and reported by CBC on the 26th of May, 2005 showed that (and what follows is copied verbatim from the CBC story): “…police in the predominantly white city were 3.7 times more likely to stop a black as a caucasian, and 1.4 times more likely to stop an aboriginal person than a white…”
• The same CBC story cites statistics gathered from British police records that show (and verbatim, again, from the same CBC story): “…that black people were stopped and searched at a rate of 142 per 1000. Whites were stopped and searched at a rate of just 19 per 1000…”

From a CBS News story published on September 29, 2003: Two researchers – from the University of Chicago and MIT – took the content of 500 real resumes off online job boards and then evaluated them, as objectively as possible, for quality, using such factors as education and experience. Then they replaced the names with made-up names picked to “sound white” or “sound black” and responded to 1,300 job ads in The Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune…

Guess what happened???

“…a higher quality resume, featuring more skills and experience, made a white-sounding name 30 percent more likely to elicit a callback, but only 9 percent more likely for black-sounding names…” – this is verbatim from the CBS News story…

…and this is but the ‘tip‘ of the proverbial iceberg…

So before you head out to ridicule someone who claims to have been unfairly profiled by the powers that be, do your research – racial profiling is alive, well, and thriving…and I’m sure it’s the same everywhere you go – I know for a fact (first-hand) that in Kazakhstan, they profile ethnic ‘Tajiks‘ much like how we profile the ‘visual minorities‘ in our corner of the planet…that’s how these crooks running highly organized businesses of religion and politics make all their profits – by ensuring that we’re always ‘afraid‘ of each other…divided, we fall – all the time…

Oh, and by the way, Riviera Maya is a beautiful place to visit…even if you possess an Arab name and sport a fabulous natural tan…

- The Ranting Dream