Are Armbands Next?

I have observed the increasing tendency of late to make bigotry more mainstream, see e.g., Rid Out. I certainly am not naive -- prejudice never left us, although for a while it did seem like it was on the wane. However, at least it was understood that one's biased views should be kept quiet, because such opinions were not generally acceptable. No more. Now that "political correctness" (which is defined to mean not expressing such bigotry in polite company) has become a concept worthy of derision, eruptions such as that voiced by George Allen, see Powerful Words, are becoming all too common.

Another example is this Think Progress video, which is very disturbing, Fox News Guest Claims "‘It'’s Time To Have A Muslims Check-Point Line In American Airports"’. News Hounds reports about the Fox segment, in Fox News Airs Call for 'Muslim-Only' Line:

A Fox News guest proposed having a "Muslims only" line for airport travelers . . . .

Conservative radio host Mike Gallagher suggested the idea during a segment Tuesday (August 15, 2006) with constitutional lawyer Michael Gross discussing racial profiling.

* * * *

"It'’s not just a matter of political correctness, please," responded Gross. "It'’s illegal, it'’s unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, it shouldn'’t be done. We do not in this country prejudge a person based upon their race, creed, color, country of national origin and it'’s wrong to do so and it addition it'’s not effective. It doesn'’t work. It actually perpetuates the problem. That is, it separates us."

* * * *

"It'’s time to have a Muslims check-point line in America'’s airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it, it'’s time," Gallagher said, garnering tepid audience applause.

Gross attacked the proposal as "absolutely wrong" because "most Arabs are not Muslims, most Muslims are not Arabs. You don't even have your facts straight. How would you feel if we had a line for the Irish, which the English proposed during the IRA problems?" He pleaded not to turn the United States into a "tyrannical, imperial country." Still, a woman in the audience asked a question about being "politically correct" by not allowing racial profiling.

Gallagher claimed that opposition to racial profiling amounted to not wanting to hurt people's feelings.

"Most Americans want prejudice. Let'’s be prejudiced against those who want to slaughter innocent American men, women and children. It'’s time we start exercising some prejudice and stop these bloody terrorists," Gallagher said, this time drawing more robust applause.

Got that? 9/11 changed everything. Under the "new world order" (as dictated by the U.S.), prejudice is a good thing. We need to just let it all hang out.

What's next? A requirement that all Muslims wear an armband with a Crescent Moon insignia perhaps?

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has a post about the British version of this same phenomenon. In Fear-mongering leads to anti-Arab hysteria on airplanes, he describes:

All of the fear-mongering and political exploitation of terrorism from the Bush administration and its loyal supporters (including the British Prime Minister) is starting to produce predictable results. Passengers are becoming unwilling to fly on planes with Arab males. Yesterday, British passengers on a Monarch Airways flight to Manchester "mutinied" because there were two Arab men on the plane.

What caused this episode?

They wore leather jackets and looked "regularly" at their watches (something only terrorists do when travelling). And they were Arab and speaking a language which the "passengers took be Arabic."

It's the Muslim version of "Driving While Black" -- "Flying While Arab."

UPDATE #2: This Daily Mail (UK) article, Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed, gives a more detailed version of the British airline incident.

Meanwhile, back in the states, another -- even more bizarre? -- incident, was posted by blogger Irregular Times, in T-Shirt of Mass Destruction?:

Raed Jarrar, the Iraqi Project Director for the human rights group Global Exchange, was stopped at JFK airport wearing a t-shirt with the words in Arabic and English, “We Will Not Be Silent.” He was told by agents at the airport he would not be permitted to board the plane wearing that t-shirt because of its message.

The armbands are definitely next.

Tags: Civil Liberties, News and Media, Video, Racial Profiling, Racism