by Michel R. Baylor

Created on: July 29, 2011

Presumably so, more black people commit robbery, more white people commit heinous crimes, more Middle Eastern people commit terrorist acts, more Latino people commit assaults, more Asian people commit white collar crimes; however, logically all black people do not commit robbery, all white people do not commit heinous crimes, all Middle Eastern people do not commit terrorists acts, all Latino people do not commit assault, and, all Asian people do not commit white collar crimes.  Therefore, no form of racial profiling is necessary for homeland security to be effective, but every form of intelligence is. 

To profile someone because of their race is based on fallacious argument in which the premise of the argument, “if most of them do,” assumes that something true generally is true in every possible case; all of them do!”  Just because a black male wears a white tee shirt that’s too big and blue jeans that ride across his buttocks doesn’t always mean that person is involved in, associated with, or part of a gang.  Jeans and tee-shirts, and “sagging” pants are fashion statements similar to the baggy “Zoot-Suit” worn by 1930s/40s youth, or the tight body hugging jeans worn by today’s youth.

Profiling assumes a person is guilty before proven innocent.  To assume that every Middle Eastern person is likely to board an airplane with a bomb is not only an ignorant argument based on false premises and conclusions, it is also against a person’s human rights and a presumptuous invasion of privacy.  “…the man involved in Sunday's incident was no threat to the flight… a Nigerian national, was suffering from an illness and spent a large amount of time in an airplane bathroom.” (www.theepochtimes.com)

Homeland Security was created to protect America using intelligent analysis, collecting pertinent information, and taking necessary action.  It is high-tech investigation and intellectual analysis that will stop perpetrators, not harassing innocent people, profiling them based on how they look or what nationality or race they happen to be.  Profiling is based on speculation, possibility, and a rush to judgment from generalizations.   A generalization is, “A statement about all the members of a group that may be true in some or many situations but is not true in every case.”  (www.dictionary.com)

Homeland Security’s

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