Last Monday KNUS radio host Peter Boyles took a call from ‘Patrick’. He told a story about his mother, a green-card-holding Dutch immigrant, who was detained at the airport for 45 min and searched. His mother was apparently in her eighties at the time and wheelchair bound. Patrick thought this was perfectly acceptable and couldn’t understand why all the protesters were making a fuss about immigrants being delayed at airports this week.
This is when Boyles jumps in to take us into his imaginary world where there was a “guy in a turban standing right behind your mother and they didn’t do a damn thing to him!”
This is because “[The TSA] aren’t allowed to profile,” Boyles said. Everyone’s favorite apartheid state, Israel, profiles and, Boyles continued, that’s why there are so few terrorist attacks there. Boyles blames the ACLU for the lack of profiling within U.S homeland security.
Boyles apparently finds it vey inconvenient that profiling is considered racist in the U.S., and even that racism isn’t tolerated.
Patrick goes on to question why there are no marches against obesity, when that is responsible for far more American deaths every year than immigration issues. Boyles doesn’t miss his chance to jab at obese people, snidely remarking that “they can’t [march].”
I won’t bother pointing out that profiling is indeed racist and that it doesn’t work. There have been a total of 44 terrorist attacks by foreign nationals since 9/11 in the US. Israel, with their advanced profiling techniques, experienced 169 stabbings, 128 shootings, 54 vehicular attacks, and one vehicular bombing. It turns out when people are treated like criminals their whole lives just for how they look, they start wanting to live up to expectations.
I won’t bother pointing out that just because someone is wearing a turban doesn’t mean they’re Muslim. Sikhs also wear turbans as part of their religion, as does anyone who wishes to keep their head cool on a hot summer day while wearing something a little more interesting than a baseball cap.
I won’t bother pointing out that a protest against obesity would make no sense because obesity is a disease and isn’t likely to change its behavior based on public opinion. People do protest income inequality, food deserts, health regulations, factory farming and all manner of things that lead to obesity. But a protest against obesity would be like protesting bullet holes.
Having to say those things out loud would be an insult to decent people around the world. Boyles and Patrick have only served to prove their own ignorant, privileged and racist natures.
I hope next time they are at the airport they are detained for hours on end for no legitimate reason. I hope one day they experience the fear and shame of being treated like you’ve done something wrong for the way you look or the faith you hold. But that would be an outrage if it happened to a white man in America.
