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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Response to Wall Street Journal on Racial Profiling of Arab, not Israeli, Men |
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by June C. Terpstra
(No verified email address) |
19 Oct 2001
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June Terpstra, activist,educator and Indymedia ally responds to today's Wall Street Journal article by Peggy Noonan ( a former speech writer for Reagon)titled "Profiling Encouraged." Based on Noonan's "hunches and thinking" she says we must "be wary of young Arab, not Israeli, men. |
Today's Wall Street Journal is featuring an article by Peggy Noonan ( A former speech writer for Reagan) called "Profiling Encouraged." Based on her "hunches and thinking" she says we must "be wary of young Arab men." Here is an example of her "reasoning":
"The people who are trying to kill us with bombs and biological weapons are not from Canada, Chile, China, India, Ireland, Tanzania, Congo, New Zealand or the island of Jamaica. They are from the Arab Mideast. They are not Israeli. They are men, and not women. They are young men. That is, they are not old men, and they are not children. So: We know the profile of the bad guys. I think I saw some of them that night across from St. Pat's, and I continue to regret not confronting them, questioning them and, if I had to, tackling them and screaming for help. I could have gotten us all arrested. If they had been innocent tourists I would have apologized, begged their forgiveness and offered to buy them a very nice dinner. If they had not been innocent, I would have helped stop some bad guys. In the past month I have evolved from polite tip-line caller to watchful potential warrior. And I gather that is going on with pretty much everyone else, and I'm glad of it. I was relieved at the story of the plane passengers a few weeks ago who refused to board if some Mideastern looking guys were allowed to board. I was encouraged just last night when an esteemed journalist told me of a story she'd been told: Two Mideastern-looking gentlemen, seated together on a plane, were eyeballed by a U.S. air marshal who was aboard. The air marshal told the men they were not going to sit together on this flight. They protested. The marshal said, move or you're not on this flight. They moved. Plane took off."
I have sent this response to the Wall Street Journal but wanted to share it with Indy readers.
To Peggy Noonan and all those who support her:
I teach university courses on race and ethnic relations and race, crime and violence. I strongly urge you to do your ethical and moral duty to obtain education in cross-cultural studies, ethics, moral philosophy and critical theory. Your views express your ignorance of your own history as a white woman and your privileged location in the USA. Do you even know that anti-Semitism includes Arab people? Perhaps if you knew the extent of harm your ignorance causes when you perpetuate the long tradition of many racist white women whose response to red, brown, black, and yellow men caused their incarceration, lynchings, torture and death, you would not spread the disease you carry to the FBI and millions of readers. There are countless consequences in response to your public "hunches" that range from supporting the killing of even more innocent men and women to the hurt and pain that I see daily in my class rooms. Please, just ask yourself, if the two thirds people of the world rose to respond to the damage caused by racism, white supremacy and greed by calling the FBI, incarcerating, lynching, and killing all white people, on the basis of "hunches" about white men and women (whether video-taping on a vacation or completing a college project,) would this too be a "righteous" response in your opinion?
It is dangerous ignorance such as yours that causes me to fear for my students as they complete field work projects and internships (many which require video-taping and interviewing). Your participation in the ongoing social construction of racism and the media "manufacturing of consent" for war and the "social imaginary" of fear that will lead to the erasure of freedoms. Your access to public space as an "expert" leaves a legacy of hate and shame infecting my children, my grandchildren and future generations of people of all colors and countries. If you do not know or understand some of these terms and concepts, again, do your homework! You are causing harm. Perhaps you would do well by beginning with Emanuel Kant's moral imperative: you choose and judge from the moral point of view if and only if you would be willing to universalize your maxim, that is, you would be willing to see your rule acted by everyone who is in a situation of a similar kind, even if you turn out to be on the receiving end. An action is morally wrong if and only if you cannot consistently will that the rule involved be acted by everyone in similar circumstances. Every rule that passes this test is a duty to keep a promise.
In concert with basic ethics, I would add that there is even more to morality and ethics than being willing to universalize one's rule. Your every day being and doing is an expression of your responsibility to your freedom. What ever compelled you to write this article has no moral goodness, no benevolence or virtue in it. Freedom is a condition of moral responsibility, each person is a unique moral agent capable of self determination not born of previous causes, not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice, intent and purpose. Just what do you believe was the choice, intent and purpose of your claim to public space, hearts and minds with your policy based on "hunches" about "Arab, not Israeli, men"?
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See also:
http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5579&group=webcast
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