The Personal Side
of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression
One of my friends who is Arab experiences prejudice on a
consistent basis. Whenever I go back
Buffalo New York to visit I make it a point to stop by and see my friends. The couple that I go visit consist of a Haitian
woman and an Arab man. There are many
occasions where we would want to go to Canada to hang out and we choose not
to. Canada is only 20 minutes from
Buffalo so it is always a nice little trip.
We already know that if we go with Murad "who is an Arabian man" that there is a good chance we
will get stopped at the border. The
employees at the border control seem to target Arabs especially those that
noticeably practice the Muslim religion and African Americans.
It seems weird to see an ethnicity that is targeted more
than more own. When the custom officers
stop you at the border they will then take your car and luggage to search
it. While they conduct their search
other officers will ask you a series of questions. This process will go on over and over again
and for hours. There are cases where
they will even search you. In a sense
they are saying all Arabs are terrorist and all African Americans are trying to
smuggle drugs into the United States. It
is one thing when the custom officers search your car but it is even more
demeaning when they choose to search you.
It is a terrible feeling when you know that you have done nothing wrong,
and you just went over the border to have some fun. Now on your trip back you are put in the
situation where you feel like you have no rights and you are at the mercy of
someone else to either make this process an easy and fast one or a difficult
and long one.
I do understand that unfortunately officials in positions
like the custom border patrol has to take “profiles” into consideration. However I do not think they have to go to the
extent that they do in all cases. You
should not automatically be pulled over because of your ethnicity. There should be other factors that one should
consider. I think that border control personal
should go through more intense ethics training.
There should be programs and training the officers should attend every
so often. I think after a while the custom
border patrol begin to get lazy and start prejudging and act more on their prejudices more than really having a
good reason to pull someone over.
Sherry, thank you for sharing your experience. I join you in the hope that our law enforcement officials receive appropriate, regular training in ethics and cultural competency. My husband and I were also detained coming back into the U.S., because of his similarity in profile to an Irish terrorist! It was not a pleasant experience, but in retrospect I understand why it was necessary. It appears that human judgment and safety can sometimes be at odds when making decisions about who is or is not a threat. I appreciate your perspective on how people from marginalized groups feel when they are singled out based on their social identity.
ReplyDelete-Susan
I agree with you the Arab culture definitely gets picked out of the crowd a lot more now because of everything that has happened. I feel bad for the people who are in that culture because it isn't their fault that people did this and now they have to get the wrath of it because some of their people chose terrible choices.
ReplyDeleteSherry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing I don't know why the Arab culture has the most harassment than any other culture, I think when we have terrorist attack that they think that all Arab people are like that and they are being judge for other people wrong doing and it is not fair. This what I think maybe I might be wrong but this is what think one problem can be.
Sherry,
ReplyDeleteThis is how unfortunately the dominant culture usually reacts. It is easy to scrutinize all Muslims for the acts of the very few. Our history is full of such bias actions; remember when the Japanese descendants were rounded up and sent to internment camps during WW2? We have a long way to go.
Sherry, Thank you for sharing. I know this must be a pain to have to experience this kind of situation. The events that happened in our country twelve years ago is still effecting people today. Hopefully customs will change the way they profile people and make their process a little less bias.
ReplyDelete