2008 Woodie Awards
Airport Security: Too quick to profile based on a passenger's race?
Point-Counterpoint
Rachael Kephart
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Profiling on flights is still a problem
We all are well aware of the heightened security at our nations borders and especially at airports. And our country needs these added precautions to keep us safe. However, airport security has taken racial profiling to the extreme and this is negatively affecting our safety.
Take for example the experiences of Anne Maina, Criminology major at KCC. Maina has been in the U.S. for three years now on a student visa and her daughter is a U.S. citizen.
For an incoming flight to the U.S. a line of people from foreign countries lined up and easily passed through security and boarded the plane but not Maina. Because she is from Kenya, a country known to have Muslims, she was stopped.
"If you look like you could be Arab or Muslim or you are from a country where there are Arabs or Muslims then they assume you are part of the terrorists," said Maina.
"They saw my passport and assumed I was Muslim, which I am not," said Maina. "It's sad when you are trying to get into somewhere and you are being pulled apart. Everybody: Moms, dads, little kids are staring at you and looking at you." If our security is so focused on one person that they don't check anyone else then they are putting our country in danger.
Anyone of those passengers could have been carrying dangerous paraphernalia and yet security could not look past the one passenger from a country where Muslims live. This is a major problem considering we claim to be a country that has labeled racism and prejudice as a thing of the past.
We all are well aware of the heightened security at our nations borders and especially at airports. And our country needs these added precautions to keep us safe. However, airport security has taken racial profiling to the extreme and this is negatively affecting our safety.
Take for example the experiences of Anne Maina, Criminology major at KCC. Maina has been in the U.S. for three years now on a student visa and her daughter is a U.S. citizen.
For an incoming flight to the U.S. a line of people from foreign countries lined up and easily passed through security and boarded the plane but not Maina. Because she is from Kenya, a country known to have Muslims, she was stopped.
"If you look like you could be Arab or Muslim or you are from a country where there are Arabs or Muslims then they assume you are part of the terrorists," said Maina.
"They saw my passport and assumed I was Muslim, which I am not," said Maina. "It's sad when you are trying to get into somewhere and you are being pulled apart. Everybody: Moms, dads, little kids are staring at you and looking at you." If our security is so focused on one person that they don't check anyone else then they are putting our country in danger.
Anyone of those passengers could have been carrying dangerous paraphernalia and yet security could not look past the one passenger from a country where Muslims live. This is a major problem considering we claim to be a country that has labeled racism and prejudice as a thing of the past.
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