Racial profiling…

Last week’s episode of Boston Public covered a very important issue in United States.

Bear with me if you already have seen the episode. During the episode, Vice Principal Guber was investigating the history of viewed sites in the library. Although his primary target was pornographic sites, Guber happened to come across one viewed site that was a terrorist site written in Arabic. The site had several September 11 still shots, e.g. the planes hitting the World Trade Center. Principal Harper, contrary to Guber, immediately thought that he may be dealing with a potential threat in his school. Guber proposed that a student may have visited the site for research or simply out of curiosity. Harper, anxious to protect the school and the students, immediately called the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The special agent assigned to the case, immediately arrived at the school and determined every individual student that had accessed the website. Only a few students were on the list, but of course what stood out was that a young Arab student named Khalid (I think) had accessed the site five times. The special agent decided to investigate Khalid first. Harper, immediately yelled out, “This is racial profiling!” In defense, the agent stated that questioning Khalid first is logical since he speaks Arabic and she reminded Harper to let her do her job since he was the one who called. Reluctantly, Harper backed away. Okay at this point I was thinking how stupid it would be to have the Federal Bureau of Investigation send an agent to a case and the agent did not know how to speak Arabic. I am certain they would not do that; therefore, why question the Arab student first?

Racial Profiling.

Khalid defended himself by saying he visited the website because he was curious about his culture. He had no definite reason of why he visited the site a total of five times… just curious. While all the investigating was going around word around the school started to spread. “There is a terrorist in the school!!” How ignorant can people be? Well to be honest, the way that the students responded, did not really surprise me… but it did hurt me to see such acts. Someone spray painted ‘terrorist’ on Khalid’s locker and several other students ridiculed him and his sister. During the episode, we never see the agent question any other student… only Khalid and his sister (this is implied).

In the end the agent determined that nothing was harmful about Khalid visiting the website and no terrorist act had occurred. Too little, too late… the damage was done. Khalid and his sister were now outcasts in their school and their father decided to take them out of Winslow High. Harper tried to defend the actions, but Khalid’s father knew that this was indeed racial profiling. Afterwards, Harper’s conscience awoke and he realized that he should not have reacted so quick to call the FBI. Harper gave a public speech to the school regarding racial profiling, declaring that the act is unacceptable for him, his students and everyone else.

That was the end.

So what do you think?

Racial profiling or not? I am a bit bias with this entry, I have let you know in so many words that I do feel that it is racial profiling. Still I want to know other opinions. Feel free to comment.

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