Flying While Arab

  Maddie Kimble

English 125: Justice, Political Thought and Action

12/11/12

Flying While Arab

“I feel violated, humiliated and sure that I was taken from the plane simply because of my appearance…” wrote Shoshana Hebshi, a U.S. citizen and daughter of a Saudi Arabian, on her blog in 2011. Upon flying home from a trip, Hebshi’s plane was forced to land, and she and two other men taken away. Hebshi was handcuffed and held for four hours, and denied the right to her phone or other personal belongings. As she continued to say, “I was forced into a situation where I was stripped of my freedom and liberty…"¹. Upon hearing this story, one might wonder what it was about Hebshi that caused her to be arrested. The answer to this is simple: she looked like a terrorist: Arab.

The Twin Towers as the second plane driven by terrorists hits ²

Since the terrorist attack of September 11^th, 2001, airports have constantly been striving to prevent future attacks by raising security, but one method they have used is crossing a line: the racial profiling of Arab or Arab looking passengers. This means that the TSA has scouted out anyone who fits the terrorist profile or “a person wearing a beard or a hijab”, and pulled them out of lines, off airplanes, and denied them the right to fly, even when there is no other indication of wrongdoing³. Though the TSA maintains that this action is only for raising security, is this really the standard we want at our airports? I for one think that such an action is unjust from the moment the TSA marks out their target to the moment the person is released to go about their business. As exemplified in the case of Shoshana Hebshi, I find that racial profiling enables discriminatory and dehumanizing action, and as such should be expunged from our airports.

For a country such as the U.S., whose very constitution upholds the liberty and equality of people, it is surprising to me that something such as racial profiling is allowed. Race and ethnic origin are not supposed to be the factors that dictate how someone is to be treated, and are especially not supposed to be used to separate one group from another. In this, I am agreeing with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision in which justice is attained through treating all people equally, regardless of appearance. However, when Arabs are pulled out of line, how is that not inequality through racial discrimination and segregation? They are literally separated from the rest of the passengers, and made to go through their own special screening so as to board the airplane just because of how they look. This is segregation in the most basic sense, and as King stated, “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives… the segregated a false sense of inferiority”⁴. Just recall how Hebshi felt, or the hundreds of stories others⁵have posted about their experiences, and you can see the humiliation and feelings and inferiority this practice has caused. This in no way promotes the equality and justice America is supposed to stand for, and is not the way we should be defending ourselves against terrorists.

There are people however, who agree with racially profiling Arabs at the airports. One common argument for continuing the practice is the idea that Arabs, as a group, are inherently angry and violent towards outsiders, i.e. the U.S. Recently, Newsweek even released an article that supported such ideas, stating that Arab “men and women who support—whether actively or passively—the idea that blasphemers deserve to suffer punishment are not a fringe group. On the contrary, they represent the mainstream...”⁶. When sources such as these report about Arabs as being a violent group, it stands to reason that people will believe this.

FBI agents help lead Timothy McVeigh from an
Oklahoma courthouse on April 21, 1995. AP Photo ⁷ .

            But is it really fair to blame an entire group for the actions of a few? Can it really be said that over 300 million people are associated with terrorists simply because they look a certain way, or come from a certain place? I think this is in a way irrational; recall for example of the Oklahoma
Citybombing ⁸. Although at first it was believed that the perpetrator was Arab, when it was revealed to be Timothy McVeigh law enforcement agencies did not single out all white males or ex-Army soldiers as possible terrorists. McVeigh is viewed as a deviant individual, so shouldn’t it be the same with Arabs?

Picture of a scene from Delta Force, showing negative views of Arabs ⁹

Also, these ideas that all or most Arabs are out to harm the U.S. and are terrorists does not come from mathematical fact, but from decades of cultural imperialism against them.  As described by Iris Young, cultural imperialism is how “… the dominant group constructs the differences which some groups exhibit as lack and negation. These groups become marked as “Other”,” which are “often attached to their bodies and which cannot easily be denied …” ¹⁰. Since the 1970’s Arabs have been marked out within American society and constantly portrayed as the villains or unscrupulous characters. The demonization of all Arabs as violent and terrorists is only a continuation of the pattern that has now affected airport policies. When we see only one portrayal of a group, believe it, and act on it as we do in airports, we essentially dehumanize the group by marking them as “other” and rejecting them from our society.

This video clip by internationally acclaimed author and media critic Jack Shaheen, talks about such characterizations in his documentary Reel Bad Arabs. (For Shaheen’s full video, click here ¹¹).

So then what about the problem at the root of all of this? What do we do about scouting out terrorists? To be honest, there is no surefire way to prevent terrorist actions, but there are other effective methods that can be used without the racial segregation and dehumanization.  

One way happens to be very simple: random and behavioral profiling. To pick out random people—of all backgrounds— or look for certain behaviors can actually be more effective than racial profiling for two reasons. First, as Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and author of several books on computer security stated, “… [racial] profiling creates two paths through security: one with less scrutiny and one with more…you invite the terrorists to take the path with less scrutiny…”¹³. Random and behavioral profiling would eliminate this problem; all people would have a chance of being pulled over, so terrorists could not exploit American stereotypes. Second, random and behavioral profiling would eliminate the problem of repeatability. Racial profiling “devotes heightenedresources to innocent people—and then devotes those resources to themrepeatedly even after they’ve been cleared as innocent…” ¹⁴, so attention is not being given to the right people. Random and behavioral would solve this problem; with random sampling there is a smaller chance that a person will be pulled over multiple times, and profiling based on suspicious behaviors has a better chance than racial profiling does of catching terrorists. In the end, these ways of scouting out terrorists can be just or even more so effective than racial profiling, minus the racial discrimination and dehumanization.

Political Cartoon of Racial Profiling of Muslim Arabs ¹⁵

In no way am I trying to negate that there have been Arab terrorists, such as those who committed 9/11. However, in this time of anxiety over terrorism, peeling back the rights people have gained in this country in no way helps to stop our enemies. In fact, such actions as racial profiling destroy the very liberties we are trying to protect. So let’s try to calm down, think rationally, and give Arabs just as much consideration as others in our airports.

To see how others are fighting to change views on Arabs through sarcasm, check out the Daily Show¹⁶ 

Works Cited:

[1] Daniel P. Finney, “Airport detainee says she was a victim of racial profiling,” The Des Moines Register, September 14^th, 2011, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-14/detroit-airline-detainee-racial-profiling/50400268/1

[2] Twin Towers, JPEG, Source: http://ncca.us/why-did-they-choose-september-11/

            [3] Delinda C. Hanley, "It's Time to End Racial, Religious and Ethnic Profiling of Americans." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 31, no. 4 (2012): 27-28. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1027759166?accountid=14667.

[4] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” 3, August 1953

[5] Susan Lau, “Racial profiling at airports unfairly targets Muslims” TheLowell.org, September 21, 2006, http://www.thelowell.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1859

[6] Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “Muslim Rage & The Last Gasp of Islamic Hate” Newsweek Magazine, September 17^th, 2012, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-islamists-final-stand.html

[7] Source: The FBI, “Terror Hits Home: The Oklahoma City Bombing” The Federal Bureau of Investigation, http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/oklahoma-city-bombing

[8] ibid

[9] Delta Force, JPEG, Source: http://possumstew.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/jihadis-skinheads-and-film-representation/

[10] Iris Marion Young, “Five Faces of Oppression” Justice and the Politics of Difference, 58-60

[11] Jack Shaheen, “Reel Bad Arabs” March 6, 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4157QYY3o4

[12] ibid, part 4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UoTMiOT3t4

[13] The Editors, “Will Profiling Make a Difference?”  The New York Times, January 4, 2010, http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/will-profiling-make-a-difference/

[14] Emily Badger, “Hey TSA, Racial Profiling Doesn’t Work” Pacific Standard, November 30, 2010, http://www.psmag.com/culture/hey-tsa-racial-profiling-doesnt-work-25725/

[15] Political Cartoon, JPEG, Source: http://barenakedislam.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/khalil-bendib-muslim-class.jpg?w=460&h=346

[16] John Stewart, “The Daily Show” Comedy Central, October 14, 2008, http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-14-2008/an-arab-family-man