Courage in Profiles
By Callimachus | Related entries in Race, Religion, Smart Things Said By Smart People, The War On TerrorismFor Tunku Varadarajan, a features editor at the Wall Street Journal, profiling is a personal issue.
After the terrorist bombings in London, and the revelations that many of the perpetrators were of Pakistani origin, I find that I am–for the first time in my life–part of a “group” that is under broad but emphatic visual suspicion. In other words, I fit a visual “profile,” and the fit is most disconcerting.
The fact that I am neither Muslim nor Pakistani is irrelevant: Who except the most absurdly expert physiognomist or anthropologist could tell from my face that I am not an Ali, or a Mohammed, or a Hassan; that my ancestors are all from deepest South India; and that my line has worshipped not Allah but Lord Shiva–mightiest deity of the Hindu pantheon–for 2,000 years? I will be mistaken for Muslim at some point ….
What does he think about that? He’s aware of the danger: “When scrutiny becomes stigma, and stigma leads to victimization, a clear jump to evil has occurred. This has not happened in America, and must not.” But he feels it has a place as a forensic tool. That is, he’s unwilling to relegate profiling to the category of things that “ought not to be done.”
Do I like being profiled? Of course not. But my displeasure is yet another manifestation of the extraordinary power of terrorism. I am not being profiled because of racism but rather because Islamist fanatics have declared war on my society. They are the dark power that leads me to an experience in which my individuality is corroded. This is tragic; but it strengthens my resolve to support the war that seeks to destroy terrorism.
This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 and is filed under Race, Religion, Smart Things Said By Smart People, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 2nd, 2005 at 11:13 am
“Who except the most absurdly expert physiognomist or anthropologist could tell from my face that I am not an Ali, or a Mohammed, or a Hassan; that my ancestors are all from deepest South India; ”
Almost anyone anywhere in India! And it’s not too hard for the rest of us either. Of course there are Alis and Hassans in southern India that might look like this guy, but that is not what he was trying to say. He was trying to say someone would mistake him for a Pakistani. Hardly.