Not Going to Talk About TedK...... How About Profiling Instead?

Trust me, you don't want me to talk about the late Senator Kennedy. No good would come of it.


MOVING ON....... I was riding the metro on the way to work and I noticed a lady next to me reading aloud from the Koran while rocking back and forth. She was decked out in a full burque (I swear it looked like she was working on a bee farm). Now, I don't normally look at someone of middle eastern decent and say "oh they must be a terrorist" but this lady had me downright scared. The situation was an extremely crowded metro car headed towards downtown DC during the AM rush hour, could you pick a better target for a terrorist attack?

Now, before jumping to conclusions, I looked at my fellow "infidel" passengers to see if they were as uncomfortable as I was. It appeared they were indeed. There was one guy between me and the lady in question who was visibly sweating and looked extremely worried (he would be the first to die if the lady suddenly lit the fuse on her shoes). Needless to say, my guard was up. At one point she bent down to get something out of her backpack and you could hear everyone just gasp (I was ready to tackle her or run for dear life at this point). Anyway, I got off at the next stop much to my relief and I haven't heard anything about a terrorist attack in the DC area so I think she probably wasn't a jihadist.

So should I be ashamed/mad at myself that I judged someone like this? The answer is no. It wasn't the skin color that made me sit up and take notice, it was the reading of the Muslim religious text on public transit which has historically been a prime target for Islamic terrorism. In fact, I would say that I was doing my duty as an American. Bear with me on this one ladies and gents..... Let's start back in 2001 when the WTC was brought down by Muslim fundamentalists. These were people of middle eastern decent who were deeply Muslim. I believe that event gave me (and every other American) the right to be cautious of everyone else matching that description. I know I lost some people with that last statement, people call it profiling or making a generalization and, while that all may be true, it is the price we must pay for vigilance. People who fit into that category have carried out numerous (13911 separate attacks according to thereligionofpeace.com) since 9/11. To me that means that people of the Muslim faith have a higher association with terrorist acts than those of any other faith or no faith at all (notice I did NOT say that being Muslim causes terrorist acts, any statistician/economist worth their salt would avoid saying that). So I do believe I have good reason to be wary of anyone reading the Koran and rocking back and forth while riding a crowded subway and wearing a backpack. Call me racist, call me a xenophobe, call me intolerant but at least I'll be alive.