Embrace Profiling
Ventura Star, August 7, 2005
By Terry Paulson, PhD

The regional carrier was full, thirty people ready to go from Indianapolis to Chicago. But there were concerned glances between strangers as we sat on temporary hold at the gate. Sitting in different rows were four Arab passengers. One appeared to be reading a holy text. Another was reading what looked like an Arab newspaper. The third stared out the window. The final one was closest to me; he was dressed in western casual clothes and seemed relaxed.

The rest in the plane were not relaxed. These men triggered instant images of 9/11. The recent London bombings did not help. I was sitting near the front of the plane. As a fifty-nine-year-old businessman, I scanned the plane for young Sumo wrestlers who might defend us. To my dismay, outside of the Arab passengers, I appeared to be the youngest passenger on board.

If these men tried to take this plane, what would I do? They had taken my nail clippers; I was without any weapon! I remembered reading self-defense articles; a pen could be used as a weapon to the throat. I knew James Bond would make that work, but I doubted the efficacy of my plan.

Still on hold at the gate, an inner dialogue surfaced: "You're a talker, not a fighter. If they are terrorists, wouldn't you rather find out while on the ground?!" I leaned back to the more casually dressed man sitting near me, "Do you live here or in Chicago?" "Chicago," he replied with a smile. "I coordinate corporate tours for visiting executives from the Middle East. We are returning from a tour of a manufacturing plant in Indiana."

The sigh of relief in the plane was evident; others now joined in the conversation. I put my "pen weapon" away for a future battle. We had profiled. We had faced our fears. We had found friends, not terrorists.

I wish seeing a Middle Easterner on a plane didn't affect me. I wish when I walked down the streets that your color and culture would just blend into the human landscape. But people who even look Arab don't blend in anymore. We have been told to be vigilant; we notice. We notice you, because we can't help it. People professing to be Muslims have been attacking and killing innocent citizens around the world.

It's time we acknowledge the obvious. Whether it is politically correct or not, we are all profiling. It is time we acknowledge that and free our security forces to aggressively use that profile to stop the bad guys!

Years ago when the Justice Department found that an elite unit of the New York City Police Department had engaged in racial profiling in their aggressive campaign on street searches, then Mayor Giuliani warned that if the unit ignored race, crime would skyrocket. He said that 89.2% of the suspects stopped and frisked were black and Hispanic; that number corresponded to the percentage of blacks and Hispanics identified by witnesses as criminal suspects. Then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said it well, "It's not about racial profiling. They're looking for bad guys."

It is time we free our police and security forces to use any profiles that will help them fight terrorism. Profiling does nothing more than increase the odds of capturing or thwarting the enemy.

America must never repeat the mistakes we made in World War II by segregating and imprisoning men and women because of their race or religion. There are many responsible Arab-Muslim citizens who are as upset with the actions of these terrorists as any other American.

To our Arab-Muslim citizens, I ask for some understanding and more patriotism. I challenge you to willingly accept increased profiling and the searches and inconveniences that will mean. As a rational American, trying to protect your country and your own family in an unsafe world, you understand why profiling may be helpful. Not all Muslim Americans are terrorists, but the terrorists who are killing innocents around the world are Muslim. Profiling is not bigotry; it is searching for the few terrorists in the midst of the good.

Please help us get to know you. Give us reasons to trust. I'd love to see more Arab-Muslims waving American flags in the streets. I'd love to see publicity about more Arab-Muslim Americans joining our military and peace-loving clerics issuing a fatwa against terrorists. I'd like to know that as you pray daily, that you would ask Allah to bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it.

But for now, let's get on with the profiling we are doing anyway. Let's free the hands of those who would protect us. As a traveling business man, I am ready to join any fellow citizens in an attempt to overpower the forces of evil. I also am ready to reach out to get to know my fellow Muslim citizens. I'd rather have you as a friend than an enemy. United we can and will win this battle.

Dr. Terry Paulson is a psychologist, speaker and author of The Dinner: The Political Conversation Your Mother Told You Never to Have

—May we never forget how truly blessed we are!