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Thursday, August 12, 2004
Malkin-bashing update — Here's how "responsible" journalists cover the new Michelle Malkin book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror. Julie Chen is questioning President Bush at the recent Unity Conference, a quadrennial convention of minority journalists:Q ...Good morning, Mr. President. I'm Julie Chen, with CBS News, and the Asian American Journalist Association.(Applause.)In fact, the following statement appears on the back of the Malkin book: “Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps. But when we are under attack, ‘racial profiling’—or more precisely, threat profiling—is wholly justified.”
THE PRESIDENT: You've got quite a following out there.
Q It is, after all, the season, isn't it? (Laughter.)
I wanted to ask you about protecting all Americans, as well. There are many Arab Americans and Muslims in this country who find themselves unfairly scrutinized by law enforcement and by society at large. Just yesterday we had arrests in Albany, New York. Immediately afterwards, some neighbors in the community said they feared that the law would come for them unfairly next. We have a new book out today that suggests perhaps we should reconsider internment camps. How do we balance the need to pursue and detain some individuals from not well-known communities, while at the same time keeping innocent people from being painted by the broad brush of suspicion?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I appreciate that. First, we don't need intern camps. I mean, forget it. (Applause.)
Which brings me to two points: First, Ms. Chen promoted an egregious falsehood, never investigated, as though it were the truth. That's irresponsible grandstanding in search of a controversy, but common in what passes for journalism these days.
Second, this business of "racial profiling" — an appalling and deliberately dishonest misnomer that does real harm.
The expression connotes stereotyping of persons on racial lines, as if it were some fancy new name for plain-vanilla bigotry; it is not. It would be more precise, as Malkin suggests, and as I have often in this blog, to refer to "threat-" or "perpetrator" profiling — because that is what is really going on.
Years ago, in a moment of inexplicable honesty, Jesse Jackson remarked that he always felt relieved when the footsteps he heard in the dark street behind him turned-out to be those of a white person.
Jackson was acknowledging what we all know: that urban muggers are most often black; he was "perpetrator profiling." That doesn't mean that the white guy behind him is innocent of bad purposes, or that every black guy is a criminal; it means only that he knows the odds, and if it's a white guy the odds are on his side.
So it is with terrorism, too. Suppose you were in charge of domestic security, and you came into possession of the remarkable fact that 100% — yes, 100% — of the people known to have stolen airplanes and used them as weapons of mass destruction by flying them into buildings happened to be Muslims of Middle Eastern origin.
That doesn't mean that the (pregnant?) all-American girl-next-door in seat 10-D isn't up to something, and it doesn't mean that the scruffy-looking guy wearing the fez probably is — but it does mean you're a damn fool if you think the odds are even.
Filed by Bob Felton at 6:05 PM | PermaLink |
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