Self-Preservation on Airlines and Elevators

I took my oldest son to the movie last night. We saw "Defiance," which is a phenomenal picture, and I'll have more about it in a later post.

What I want to talk about here Brian's post at Incertus, "On Flying While Arab," where he denounces racial profiling against ethinic minorities in airline safety as "racist":

Patrick Smith, who writes "Ask the Pilot" for Salon, spent the second half of his column today talking about how some American travelers are a bit too uptight when it comes to reacting to people of a particular ethnicity on airplanes.

He calls them irrational and foolish. I call them racist. And part of the reason it's a problem is because passengers get their irrational feelings reinforced by those in power. Profiling adds to the problem, because it makes the ignorant feel justified in suspecting a group of people based on nothing more than their physical appearance.

I don't really like Brian, from what I see in his essays. He embodies all that is wrong with today's brainless, politically-correct neo-Stalinism on the "progressive" left. In reading this blog, I've yet to see a post that breaks from the orthodoxy of the angry demonic partisanship of the netroots.

Now, my son and I drove to Los Angeles to see the film, which is playing exclusively at The Grove until general realease next week. We hung out at Barnes and Noble after the film was over, and headed for home around 11:00pm. The Grove is a cool Westside shopping mall with an old-town theme. We were especially impressed by the trolley cars and the outside dining by the lake and fountain. It's a country feel, amazingly, just South of Beverly Boulevard. Parking at the complex is facilitated by a huge parking structure, and as usual, we wound up parking near the top, on the 7th level. The night view over West L.A. and the Hollywood Hills was spectacular.

Anyway, as we were leaving, approaching the elevator to take us back up to the top of the structure, I noticed three black youths with heavy athletic jackets, loose jeans, and basketball shoes. I realized right then, before my son pushed the button to call the elevator car, that we'd be riding up with these guys in close proximity. I looked more carefully at them. The guys were playing with each other, having fun. There didn't seem to be an "alpha" leader of the three, and the shorter of the three friends jumped on his buddy's back and playfully bopped him on the head. I didn't notice any of sign of that big, phat urban swagger-stroll, which is inherently menacing, and it's a walk I see all too often in the classroom halls of my college. The guys weren't paying any attention to us, and I held the door open for them as we all hopped on the elevator. Another gentleman hurried to get on, and he pressed level 8 on the control panel, so I knew he'd be riding all the way to the top.

Now readers, am I racist for checking my surroundings and sizing up the safety situation for myself and my son? We rode the elevator up without incident. It was a non-event, no more significant than if a petite elderly Jewish couple had ridden up with us (keep in mind I chatted with just such a couple while waiting in line before we entered the movie house to watch the film, so the example is simply one that comes to me after seeing a movie about WWII Jewish partisans). But let's be honest? How many others out there would have waited for another elevater car? Young black male youths out for some fun at the mall on a Saturday night right? Or, gang-bangers strolling their turf while packing metal underneath their Starter jackets, or whatever other urban gear is the latest status symbol among inner-city coolsters?

Am I then "too uptight"? Well, before the PC troll police attack me for racial insensitivity, remember what Jesse Jackson, a paragon of racial sensitivity, said in 1993:

There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery - then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.

My sense is that self-preservation trumps political correctness, and I think most people, culturally-aware sensitive people, would make the exact same calculations I made last night 50 miles from home, at an unfamiliar shopping center, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, on L.A.'s Westside.

But back to Brian and Arabian airline travelers: Are Americans justified in their concerns and attendent ethnic-profiling of Middle Eastern passengers on commercial airliners? Considering that almost all airline hijacking in the last 35 years (not to mention our most recent terrorist suicide attacks on 9/11) have been staged by young Middle Eastern terrorists, who can you blame? Brian at Incertus blames the Bush adminstration's fearmonger, where ...

... our government, using the power of the TSA, has ingrained in a lot of people [an irrational fear of ethnic difference], which is that we should be more suspicious of brown people with unfamiliar names and accents who want to get on planes.

Actually, it's not irrational at all for people to worry about those who are statistically most likely to do them harm, whether this be young black youths on a cloistered elevator ride at an urban parking garage or Muslims on a post-9/11 commercial flight.

But don't mind me, I'm trying not to inflame anyone's racial sensibilities.