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I bought a new camera bag a couple weeks ago. It's a giant backpack really. I bought it because the camera fits safely in a nice protective pocket, and I also have room to put full size 8.5-by-11-inch photos, documents and envelopes flat in the other compartment. But it's almost too big. I nearly look like I'm going camping with it on. I'm considering taking it back.
This morning as I came down the steps into the subway station there were a half-dozen cops set up at a folding table outside the turnstile with a sign announcing random backpack checks. There I was with my big camera backpack, certain that I would get stopped. I wondered how long it would take. I tried to remember if I had any nude photographs with me. I even imagined teasing the big furry-forearmed officer at the far end of the folding table about the additional cavity check I needed him to perform. But I pulled out my MetroCard, swiped it, and passed through the turnstile without as much as a word from any one of the cops on duty.
Okay, so I'm a 5'4" redhead in my late 40s and flat-front Dockers. There's a good chance that I'm not carrying any fundamentalist religious grudges against the United States to the point that I'd blow myself up with the rest of my fellow passengers. But I was surprised that the size of my backpack alone didn't attract some attention. If you think about it, someone who looked like me would be the perfect decoy for a surprise attack by terrorists (are they really going to look Middle Eastern next time?), but also I could have been used as a pretty good example by the NYPD if they wanted to prove that they didn't racial profile the people they stopped at the bag check. But I glided through.
I'm not one to take a big loud clamoring stand on racial profiling either way. I hate that racial profiling has hurt, offended, even killed so many people at so many times in history, and it always saddens me in all cases that it happens at all. And yet I know that after September 11th, the Islamic stores and mosque in my neighborhood in Brooklyn (which was home base for many involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) seemed less exotic and more menacing. And after the Oklahoma City bombings I myself racially profiled the redneck, mullet-coiffed, itty-bitty-mustache-wearing members of the trailer-court extensions of my own family in the Midwest, watching for any signs of unrest and chemical fertilizers.
This morning, after I passed through the turnstile, the Army lieutenant who was giving out enlistment fliers to each of the young Latino and black men ahead of me in the passage way completely overlooked me. Above ground the newspaper vender, who was chanting "Daily News...25 cent" as everyone else lumbered past, offered me a New York Times. And the young gay Starbucks baristo asked me if my partner and I were moving to Chelsea. I was profiled more times this morning between my home and the office than I have ever noticed. And yet today was much like any other day.
This morning as I came down the steps into the subway station there were a half-dozen cops set up at a folding table outside the turnstile with a sign announcing random backpack checks. There I was with my big camera backpack, certain that I would get stopped. I wondered how long it would take. I tried to remember if I had any nude photographs with me. I even imagined teasing the big furry-forearmed officer at the far end of the folding table about the additional cavity check I needed him to perform. But I pulled out my MetroCard, swiped it, and passed through the turnstile without as much as a word from any one of the cops on duty.
Okay, so I'm a 5'4" redhead in my late 40s and flat-front Dockers. There's a good chance that I'm not carrying any fundamentalist religious grudges against the United States to the point that I'd blow myself up with the rest of my fellow passengers. But I was surprised that the size of my backpack alone didn't attract some attention. If you think about it, someone who looked like me would be the perfect decoy for a surprise attack by terrorists (are they really going to look Middle Eastern next time?), but also I could have been used as a pretty good example by the NYPD if they wanted to prove that they didn't racial profile the people they stopped at the bag check. But I glided through.
I'm not one to take a big loud clamoring stand on racial profiling either way. I hate that racial profiling has hurt, offended, even killed so many people at so many times in history, and it always saddens me in all cases that it happens at all. And yet I know that after September 11th, the Islamic stores and mosque in my neighborhood in Brooklyn (which was home base for many involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) seemed less exotic and more menacing. And after the Oklahoma City bombings I myself racially profiled the redneck, mullet-coiffed, itty-bitty-mustache-wearing members of the trailer-court extensions of my own family in the Midwest, watching for any signs of unrest and chemical fertilizers.
This morning, after I passed through the turnstile, the Army lieutenant who was giving out enlistment fliers to each of the young Latino and black men ahead of me in the passage way completely overlooked me. Above ground the newspaper vender, who was chanting "Daily News...25 cent" as everyone else lumbered past, offered me a New York Times. And the young gay Starbucks baristo asked me if my partner and I were moving to Chelsea. I was profiled more times this morning between my home and the office than I have ever noticed. And yet today was much like any other day.
2 Comments:
WOW! Flat-front Dockers??!!!! There is actually someone out there without pleats!?!!? Oh, thank God - or whomever you thank - I was beginning to think Armageddon had already started.
Actually, if my 6'1''/250/furball husband would wear Dockers AT ALL, I'd have to pick my jaw up from the ground. I think flat front may be asking too much.
Madam President, do you tease me with your husband's vital statistics on purpose? A military man who is 6'1" 250 pound furball!? Dag! If I met him a gay bar I'd be buying him drinks.
BTW, check today's post. You've got questions.
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