Now, I’m not one to point fingers. But if I were, and I were U.S. Airways, I would be pointing fingers at myself and the half of Earth’s population that looks vaguely of Middle Eastern or Muslim descent.
I fall into neither of these categories, but I’ve still been one of the three or four people that has been “randomly” chosen to be searched every single time I’ve boarded a plane since Sept. 11. The procedure is relatively quick and entirely painless—it’s in the interest of national security and I respect that. I just wish they searched that wackjob standing behind me. The one with the pierced eyebrows and the “Your favorite band sucks” t-shirt on. Not because I thought he was a terrorist or anything, I just wanted to see what kind of crazy shit he had in his bag. (“Umm…sort of. It’s both. It actually functions as a dildo and a bong.”)
But like I said, it’s in the interest of national security and I respect that. I’ve been a bed-wetting liberal for most of my life (a short visit to the hypnotist at age 17 cured that problem) and just a regular liberal for three years, and I’m perfectly fine with the racial profiling that occurs at airports. The conservatives among you might be inclined to jump up and cry “Hypocrite! How can you support racial profiling in one circumstance but be vehemently against it in another?” Excellent question, and I’m glad you asked. You see, when I am targeted by racial profiling at the airport, there is no chance that I’m going to be sodomized and/or clubbed to death. A moot point, perhaps, but one I feel is worth mentioning.
I agree with the need to increase airport security, but since Sept. 11, people have been making some brash claims. They claimed irony is dead, which is sort of true. Richard Irony, age 93, passed away in his home on Sept. 15 while watching an infomercial for a food dehydrator guaranteed to help one live until his or her 94th birthday. Cause of death: consumption of food with too much water in it. Regardless, irony—the concept—is still alive and well.
One thing that can be said about this national tragedy it is that it brought men, women and children of all races, except for Arabs, closer together. Arab-Americans have been placed in the awkward position of having to constantly prove their patriotism. They fly American flags from every possible location—car antennas, shop windows, on top of other American flags. The whole thing smacks of a conspiracy by the American Flag Production Industry. The larger the ethnic group that fears for their safety, the more American flags get sold. This explains the sudden abundance of “Is your neighbor really a WASP or is he just another terrorist?” and “Got Flags? Oh, you must be a terrorist, then” billboards along our nation’s highways.
Another industry that has benefited in this post-9-11 world is the going-through-bags industry. This takes us back to the airport, where I am standing in line. I know they are going to check me, but I’m not really sure why. Security is always very apologetic regarding my selection. I was once told that they selected me because I “looked nice, like [I] wouldn’t mind being searched.” I’ve heard a lot of adjectives used to describe the terrorists, and the word “nice” was used four or five times at most. Much more frequently, people chose to describe them as “not nice” or even “mean.” Perhaps these random searches would prove more useful if the airlines would use a mixed strategy of racial profiling and not being jackasses.
I’m not sure what the exactly the procedure would be if a bomb was actually found during one of these random searches. I would hope that in the time it took for authorities to arrive, all the other passengers would be given the opportunity to punch the terrorist one time in the face. Because I am a nonviolent person, but would still feel a certain amount of anger, I would probably give the would-be terrorist a football helmet to put on when my turn came up. Then as he was affixing the chinstrap, I would kick him in the balls.
Of course, I cannot actually advocate such action. Doing so would be stooping to the level of the terrorists and wholly un-American. The patriotic thing to do would be to help control the terrorist until the authorities arrived, then solve things the American way: through secret military trials.
