Rights revoked

The bad guys didn't just make us uncomfortable in our own country. The shame is that they made us much too comfortable with something that has no place in our country – that bit of human nature known as racial (and ethnic) profiling.

We got so comfortable, so fast, with the idea of detectives – and private citizens playing detective – singling out one group of people for special scrutiny that many of us didn't bother to ask ourselves about the right and wrong of it. All that we cared about was that it was justified, or that we considered it justified, given that all 19 of the hijackers who commandeered four passenger jets on Sept. 11 were Muslims from Arab countries.

With that established, all that Americans preach about judging people by character and not skin color, or about how the behavior of individuals cannot be assumed to extend to the ethnic groups to which they belong, never made it into practice.

Within days of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States became a very confusing place. Angry and offended over the enormous loss of human life, some overheated Americans stormed out and threatened fellow Americans with bullying and beatings.

The intended targets were individuals of Arab descent but, in some cases, these vigilantes impersonating patriots couldn't even manage to distinguish between actual Arab Americans and those who resemble them. Among the victims of hateful crimes were turban-wearing Sikhs from India and even dark-skinned Latinos. It was just such a case of mistaken identity that appears to be behind the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Sikh who owned a gas station in Arizona.

The contradictions didn't stop there. The initial response of some Americans to an attack on their nation was to unravel what the nation stands for. Many were so desperate to preserve a nation founded in liberty that they eagerly sacrificed the liberties of others.

Rep. John Cooksey of Louisiana made the helpful suggestion that police stop and question anyone with a "diaper on his head."

Not all Americans went that far, but many came close to the edge.

A Los Angeles Times poll found 68 percent of respondents approved of allowing police to make random stops of people who fit the "profiles" of terrorists. African Americans, a group that has in the past complained vociferously about racial profiling, gave 63 percent support for police profiling of Arabs.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found 58 percent of respondents in support of more intensive airport security checks for Arabs – including U.S. citizens – than for other travelers. Almost half – 49 percent – went along with special ID cards for Arab Americans. And nearly a third – 32 percent – had no problem with law enforcement putting them under "special surveillance."

That's it? No questions about herding Arabs into pens and giving them rations of bread and water?

We Americans like to think that we've learned from our mistakes, like the decision to intern Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But pay close attention to the current debate – or the lack of debate – over how we treat Americans of Arab descent and one can understand how an episode that now seems so vile could have occurred in the first place.

At present, the U.S. Department of Justice can't make up its mind whether it wants to protect Arab Americans or prey upon them.

In the initial hours after the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft disavowed racial profiling while regional FBI directors visited mosques and promised Muslims that hate crimes would not be tolerated. But then came the pressure. People asked tough questions about how our intelligence agencies – including the FBI – could have failed us on such a grand scale. Agents knocked on doors and hauled off hundreds of Arabs, many of them immigrants.

The authorities have detained them by utilizing a legal provision that, in effect, suspends the writ of habeas corpus for anyone deemed a "material witness" to a crime. The detainees have been questioned, but not a single one has been charged with a crime directly connected to the events of Sept. 11.

Law-abiding Americans have considered it a birthright not to fear a knock on the door. Law-abiding Arab Americans should not have to fear such a fate either.